


I Don't Dance

by Lex_Munro



Category: Avengers (Comic), Captain America (2011), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Movie Fusion, Angsty Schmoop, Humor, Mild Language, Multi, Romance, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-18
Updated: 2011-08-06
Packaged: 2017-10-22 13:44:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 18,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/238660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lex_Munro/pseuds/Lex_Munro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An off-kilter romance between a futurist and a relic of the past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Falling for the First Time

**Author's Note:**

> A mostly movieverse AU. As you can tell from the dates, I started writing this series before Iron Man 2 came out, and even before the actor for Cap was official. The result is a Steve who changed shape a lot in my mind, but stayed more or less true to a strange combo of Ultimates!Steve and 616!Steve. The later chapters start to cross over with my Wolverine movieverse series, [Blood & Tears](http://archiveofourown.org/works/238816).
> 
> Now available in [PRC](http://www.mediafire.com/?ferpcykg2z77c78) and [ePub](http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?71sqx6dktadk3b8). Let me know when the link dies, and I'll re-upload.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony sticks his foot in his mouth when meeting his childhood hero.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol.  that's all i can say.  i can't even say this was MerianMoriarty's fault, because i wrote this one when i was supposed to be writing that crack prompt she gave me...
> 
>  **warnings:**   iron man movieverse, which bears some resemblance to Ultimates (a little au-ish, because i like the 616 lineup better).  bad 616 references.  shameless pre-slash.  language: pg (primetime tv).
> 
>  **pairing:**   Steve/Tony pre-slash.
> 
>  **timeline:**   let's call it ~3 years after the first movie, with the Avengers firmly established, Tony and his entourage moved to Manhattan, etc.
> 
>  **disclaimer:**   all the characters belong to someone not me.  no, really.  if i owned Captain America, i would never leave the house...
> 
>  **notes:**   1) i guess the first thing to know here is that i was completely picturing Aaron Eckhart as Cap.  and the next thing to know is that i'm entertaining visions of Alicia Silverstone as Carol (lol) and somebody like James Spader as Hank.  2) the second thing to know is that, while i can write smartass!Pepper, i have no knack for british sarcasm, and am therefore incapable of subtly-smartass!Jarvis.  my bad.  3) thing to know #3, OBLIVIOUS STEVE IS OBLIVIOUS, and tony is completely in love with him.  i'm thinking that was the real cause of the Civil War... _tony:_ "omg, steve, ilu." _steve:_ "yeah, you and the rest of the country. 8D wait. what?" _tony:_ "i'm so scorned! DIE!" *rofl*  4) p.s. the title is a reference to the Barenaked Ladies song "Falling for the First Time."  5) okay, after watching The First Avenger, I have been sold on ChrisEvans!Cap.

**Falling for the First Time**

 

The daily schedule of any CEO was riddled with meetings and phone calls and make-it-happens. For the CEO of a Fortune Five-Hundred, there were considerably _more_ of these.  Add onto that workload the various save-the-world errands of SHIELD and the myriad swirlings of design specs constantly improving themselves in his genius mind, and Tony Stark was a _very_ busy man indeed.

He’d already smoothed the ruffled feathers of twenty major investors and three reporters by the time lunch rolled around and Pepper passed him a memo that Colonel Fury had demanded his presence in the SHIELD lab they’d installed in Stark Tower (and _god_ , he missed the beach house, but three floors at the top of a veritable Tower of Babel was a nice consolation).

“I don’t wanna deal with it, whatever it is,” he told her.

“I’m sure you don’t, but since he’s Iron Man’s commanding officer and it’s only three floors down, I thought you’d see _reason_ for once,” she replied, carefully rearranging the paperwork on his desk for him.  “He wants you to meet someone—”

“Another Avenger candidate?” he asked, making a face.  “Things were so much easier when I could avoid work by sneaking the hot rod out for a spin…”

Pepper stared imperturbably.  “I had a condo in a _nice_ neighborhood,” she retorted.  “I had to sell my grandmother’s antique china cabinet because of the cut in square footage, just so that I could follow you to Superhero Central and make sure you don’t forget to run the company in your spare time.”

He twitched his mustache a little.  He stood up.  “Okay, I’ll go see him.  But I want that BLT salad today—the one with the avocado slices and the little bleu cheese crumbles?”

“Anything, just _go_ before the horrible man calls me again and starts talking in his ‘stern voice.’”

“The one where you can practically hear the veins in his forehead bulging?  Maybe it’ll be another looker, like Natasha,” Tony mused, straightening his tie.  “Hmmm, or Carol.  I can always use more blondes in my life.”

“Stop primping, you look fine,” Pepper said.

“You sure?  I was thinking that maybe I should’ve worn the bronze tie today, a little less imposing than the garnet one, and it always makes my eyes look—”

“ _Go_.”

He knew that tone.  It was the one that meant he was pushing Pepper’s patience a little too far, and she was approaching the point of underhanded tactics like letting people see him when he was pretending to be indisposed.

“Got it,” he said, and strode quickly for the elevator.

The SHIELD laboratory took up an entire floor, three down from the penthouse where Tony preferred to sequester himself when he was avoiding the everyday bothers of the company (two down from the floor that housed the Avengers), and was the domain of the ever-absent-minded Dr. Hank Pym.  Hank was a genius of several streaks, including biochemistry and subatomic particles, and he was very fussy about who went in and out of his lab, so Tony was not surprised to be intercepted the moment he stepped off the elevator.

“This is a restricted area—” the SHIELD agent began, shifting his grip on his rifle.

“And I own the building,” Tony told him with a charming smile.

The agent relaxed.  “Mr. Stark, sir.  Colonel Fury’s expecting you.  Exam room one.”

Why Fury couldn’t have come to _Tony’s office_ , he didn’t know, but it was a real pain in his ass to jump through all the hoops necessary to invade Hank’s kingdom of entomology and complex stoichiometry.  He had to swipe his access card at the door to the examination room, then he had to press his hand to a scanner (which he conscientiously wiped with his handkerchief afterward) and lean forward for a retinal scan, and _then_ he had to sit through five seconds of various locks and pressure mechanisms clicking and whirring out of place so that the door could slide open.

Fury was there with his usual look of aloof hostility, standing next to some big, strapping blond who looked like he’d been recruited from a small-town football team.

“Okay, Nick,” Tony began at a brisk pace, the better to annoy the SHIELD commander.  “Not that it isn’t _lovely_ to waste my lunch break watching the fascinating play of fluorescent lights across your burnished chocolate pate, but I have a minor press junket and a budget overview after this, then a vid-conference via satellite with the board of the Japanese branch this evening, meanwhile Iron Man’s left thruster’s got an alignment issue, and I’m thinking the Audi could use a quick tune-up before I try and fail once more at talking Natasha into having dinner with me.  Who’s the new guy?  He’s got a real Captain America vibe going for him—we can market that.  Seriously, we’ll put him on a poster, he can be the Avengers’ new recruitment hook.”

Fury glared at him.  “Well, Stark, if you could shut your mouth for half a second, I’d tell you who he is.  It’s funny you should mention Captain America, since that’s who we just fished out of the ice and thawed.”

Tony pointed to the blond.  “So… _oh_.  You would be…”

“Steve Rogers,” the guy said with a smile, and held out his hand.

Tony chuckled and shook his hand (and tried not to blurt out anything about glittering blue eyes or boy-next-door looks).  “And _I_ am incredibly embarrassed.  Tony Stark, CEO of Stark Industries, founding member and tactical officer of the Avengers.”

“Thank you for making time,” Steve said.

“For _Captain America_?” Tony scoffed.  “If Fury’d said that’s who I was meeting, I would’ve cleared the afternoon.  I used to read _comic books_ about you when I was a kid.  Maybe some other time, we can get together and talk about superheroing.  Y’know, schmooze.  But I really do have a full schedule today, and I need to eat my lunch or Pepper’ll have a fit.  Have you met Pepper, Steve?  Nevermind, you _will_ , she runs my life.  Nick, take him upstairs, let him pick out a room in the Avengers suite—uh, _not_ the second one on the left, or he’ll have to listen to Pete’s snoring.”

And he reluctantly left the room, filled with an odd mixture of giddy hero worship, crushing embarrassment, and no small amount of attraction.

His salad was waiting, crisp and perfect (and probably ordered long before he’d asked for it, so that it would arrive on time).  Pepper was sorting a small stack of papers into the itemized piles on his desk.

“Pepper, my dear, did you _know_ Hank was thawing Captain America downstairs?” he drawled as he took his seat.

She just raised her eyebrows and regarded him blandly.

He rolled his eyes.  “You could’ve warned me,” he said grumpily.  “I would’ve worn a nicer tie, and I wouldn’t have stuck my foot in my mouth.”

“Maybe I wanted Mr. Rogers to see you in your natural state, without the undue influence of good manners.”

“That’s cruel.  You _knew_ he was my childhood hero.  You _knew_ Fury had him downstairs.  You _knew_ I’d have him living one floor down from my penthouse.  And you _wanted_ me to make a bad impression.”

Pepper smiled as she set down the last piece of paper.  “Oh, Tony…the only time you make a _good_ impression is when you’re caught so off-guard that you don’t have time to _lie_.”

“That’s completely untrue.  I’ve made great impressions on people by lying through my teeth—how do you think I get all the board directors to like me?”

“Something tells me that Mr. Rogers is a little harder to lie to than a bunch of old men in suits.  I thought you’d benefit from getting into the habit of telling him the truth.”

“Low blow.  I am perfectly capable of telling people the truth of my own volition, just ask all the girls whose names I admitted to not remembering.  You knew he was gorgeous, too, didn’t you?  You know I have a weakness for tall blonds.  You let me go down there, knowing full well I could’ve done something _really_ foolish like using a substandard pick-up line on _Captain America_.  Pepper, are you punishing me for something?  Is it the whole ‘leaving California’ thing?”

Pepper raised her eyebrows again.  “Of course I’m not.  I had faith in your ability to appear to _not_ be a drooling neanderthal, though I’m starting to think I may have given you just a little too much credit.  Will that be all for now, Tony?”

“Go on down to the suite and acquaint _Mr. Rogers_ with twenty-first-century toys like Tivo and XM Radio.  Maybe go wild and introduce him to texting.  And Jarvis, don’t go startling the poor man; wait until you’ve been introduced to say anything.”

 _~I’d like to take the opportunity to remind you, sir, that my manners are_ impeccable _, and I would assuredly refrain from, as you say, ‘startling the poor man.’~_

“Don’t you take that tone with me, mister,” Tony snorted.  “I could’ve left you in Malibu with Dummy and the rest of the workshop, destined to be shipped over here at Rhodey’s earliest convenience.”

“No, you couldn’t have,” Pepper said firmly.  “I would’ve staged a revolt on the spot.  No way would I be stuck being the only one responsible for making sure you eat and sleep _on top_ of being the only one with the good sense to keep you from trying too hard to flirt with every devastatingly handsome blond national icon you meet.”

“Devastatingly handsome, I like that—can I use it later?  He’s not just an icon, he’s a _treasure_ , and you know me, Potts, I’m a collector.”

“Of the phone numbers and imaginative death threats of every reasonably attractive person in a ten mile radius…”

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

 

 **.End.**


	2. It's Swell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The headlines following Steve's first public appearance make Tony want to strangle someone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cackling!SLJ!Fury is the funniest mental image i'll have all week.
> 
>  **warnings:**   iron man movieverse (a little au-ish, because i like the 616 lineup better).  shameless pre-slash (TonyxSteve).  language: pg (primetime tv).
> 
>  **pairing:**   Tony/Steve pre-slash.
> 
>  **timeline:**   let's call it ~3 years after the first movie, with the Avengers firmly established, Tony and his entourage moved to Manhattan, etc.  a week after **Falling for the First Time**.
> 
>  **disclaimer:**   all the characters belong to someone not me.  no, really.  if i owned Captain America, i would never leave the house...
> 
>  **notes:**   1) again, in my mind Alicia Silverstone is Carol and James Spader is Hank.  i have no idea who would play the twins.  2) Fury as the source of pop culture correction was something i just had to do.  because it would annoy Tony and therefore lead to humor.  this is also the reason i think Fury would make Tony play PR-boy on top of being the money for the Avengers.  3) as always, oblivious Steve is oblivious.  he has no concept of other people not being morning people.  he probably gets up at six every morning and takes a jog around the block or something...XD  4) p.s. like i said, Aaron Eckhart was the guy I originally pictured as Cap, but ChrisEvans!Cap slowly grew on me.  keep reading my Avengers movie-verse fics and see if you can find the point at which he took over as Cap in my brain...

**It’s Swell**

 

Tony rubbed at his eyes and tried looking again.

Nope.

The headline still read, _Gee, It’s Swell_.

He whimpered and put his head in his hands.

 _~Sir, if I may interrupt your current attempt at reality denial?~_

“What is it, Jarvis?” Tony groaned.

 _~Colonel Fury has arrived, sir.~_

“About damn time…”

The door whooshed open.  “This better be _good_ , Stark, I’m a busy man.”

Tony held up one of the newspapers from the pile.  “Mind telling me why you didn’t let me brief Theodore Cleaver before you sicced the press on him?”

“Reintroducing himself to the public was Rogers’ idea,” scoffed the big black man, taking a seat and propping his shoes on Tony’s desk.  “By the way, Leave It to Beaver aired twelve years after Cap hit the ice.  Henry Aldrich was the forties’ awkward teen.”

“Okay, great, nice.  But you wanted me to handle the Avengers’ public image, you told me to get the press and the politicians to _take us seriously_ , and Pepper c— _I_ can’t do that when you let little Stevie Rogers toddle out in front of the cameras and say, ‘ _Gee, it’s swell_.’”

“I think you’ll find that’s not _actually_ what he said.”

“No!” Tony laughed, a trifle hysterically, and dug through the papers to find one with the exact quote.  He cleared his throat.  “When asked his opinion on the twenty-first century, Mr. Rogers gave a boyish smile and blithely replied, ‘Gee, I haven’t seen much of it yet, but so far it’s swell.’”  Tony flung the paper into the air.  “And that was Merriweather, the nicest one of the bloodsucking bastards!  You let _Christine goddamn Everhart_ into that room with him!  I thought _I_ was a PR nightmare…we’re a _laughingstock_.”

“Surely that’s not an unfamiliar situation for you, Stark,” Fury said snidely.

 _~Excuse me, sir.~_

“Not now, Jarvis, I’m busy having a _stroke_ ,” Tony snapped.

 _~Quite.  However, I thought you should know that Captain Rogers is, in fact, about to knock on the door.~_

“Great!”  Tony fell into his chair and threw his arms up.  “Let him in.  Might as well.”

Two knocks, polite but firm.

“Come on in, Steve,” Tony called, setting his chair spinning with an idle kick of his foot.

“Hi there,” Steve greeted as he came in the door and shut it behind him.  “Thought I’d come see how you were—Miss Potts said you were looking panicked about the press conference, and Pete wouldn’t stop laughing over the Times, which seemed to put her off a bit.”

Still spinning, Tony sighed.  “Got an idle question for ya, Stevo.”

“Uh, is it okay if I sit down?”

Tony flapped a hand.  “Oh, sure, sure, go ahead, have a seat.  Out of curiosity, when was the last time you _talked with the outside world_?  Was it before or after you punched Hitler’s lights out?”

“I can’t see what there is to be sore about, but it sounds like you’re trying to be mean.”

Tony laughed again, slowly spun to a halt half-facing his guests.  Fury looked smug.  Steve was leaning forward with a little frown of hurt feelings.  “Seriously, Steve, aside from the Avengers, SHIELD, and the military, when was the last time you spoke to someone in America?”

The big blond shifted a little.  “Well, I guess it would’ve been around nineteen forty-four sometime.  Obviously, language is going to change with the times, whole new words have to be made up for new technology, after all…”

“Nineteen forty-four,” Tony mused.  “Oh, _god_.  Forty-four to present, full-speed, half-cocked, and minus one translator.  Nick, you did that intentionally, didn’t you?  What were you hoping to accomplish?  Or was it just to get back at me for those quotes about you in Time Magazine?”

“I don’t understand—I thought it went well,” Steve said.

Tony picked up the remaining newspapers from his desk and spun his chair again, idly flinging page after page of newsprint over his shoulders.  “Oh, sure it did.  If you like press conferences that turn into media circuses.  I can see it now…‘Avengers looking to disapprovingly shake fingers at a bad guy near you.’  Yes, that should strike fear into the hearts of villains _everywhere_.”

“There’s no call for that sort of mockery, and I’ll have you know I don’t shake fingers at villains—I give ‘em a good sock in the eye.”

“That’s great, junior, but do me a favor and stay away from the press until somebody’s caught up your vocabulary to at least the eighties.”

“Nobody’s explained to me yet why this is all a bad thing.”

Tony heard Fury snort and shot him a venomous glare.  Then he picked up a fallen front page and held it up.  “Because of _this_.”

 _Avengers Already Anachronistic_ , was the headline (unfortunately clever and gallingly catchy, Tony had to admit, but that was J. Jonah Jameson for you).

Undaunted, Steve met Tony’s gaze.  “Is this the part where I admit I don’t know what ‘anachronistic’ means?”

Tony snapped.  He crumpled the damn paper to into a tiny ball and flung it at Steve (who caught it without looking) before covering his face with his hands again.

“You’re overreacting,” Steve said with infuriating calm.  “Those reporters seemed pretty happy, all in all—I think this’ll turn out hunky-dory.”

“You did _not_ just say that…” groaned Tony.  “You could’ve at least said ‘peachy-keen.’”

“Peachy-keen came out of the fifties,” Fury gleefully informed him.  “And ‘anachronistic’ means old-fashioned, out-dated, obsolete.”

Steve made a sound of affront.  “Well, _that’s_ not fair.  Old-fashioned doesn’t equate to _bad_ , and certainly not to _obsolete_ , I mean…”  He trailed off, sounding petulant.  “You fellas wouldn’t’ve asked me to go back to superheroing if I was _obsolete_.”

Tony heaved a sigh.  “No.  No, you’re not obsolete.  And god knows we needed somebody who makes America look wholesome again.  Promise me you’ll talk to people besides Natasha and Hank.  Talk to Pete and Mary-Jane.  Talk to Carol.  Talk to _Pepper_ , for god’s sake.  And tell them to let you know when you say something _dorky_ and _forties_.”

There was a pause.  “What about you?”

Frowning, Tony slid his hands down his face enough to look at Steve.  “What _about_ me?”

Steve shrugged.  “You’re good with words, aren’t you, Tony?  Can’t I just talk more with _you_?”

“No,” Tony said firmly.

“Why not?” Steve asked with a hint of a pout.

Fury was leering like Ebenezer Scrooge watching poor people freeze in an alley.  “Oh, _do tell_ , Stark.  Why can’t he just talk more with _you_?”

Tony glared at the director of SHIELD.  “Because, as I mentioned, he’s supposed to be _wholesome_.  The Avengers need a family-friendly face, and I’m _not_ family-friendly.  We’re fundamentally incompatible on the family-friendly front.”

“ _Why_?” Steve pressed.

If Fury leered any harder, he was sure to burst into evil cackles.

Schadenfreude could be a real bitch, sometimes.

As patiently as possible, Tony leaned forward and folded his hands on his desk.  “Well, because you’re G-rated, and I’m PG-13 at the very least for mature language, consumption of alcohol, and sexual content.”

“The MPAA didn’t impose ratings until the sixties,” Fury put in helpfully.

“Oh, for _god’s sake_ …” Tony growled, and dropped his forehead to the surface of his desk.  “And that’s the other reason, Steve—I don’t have the right vocabulary to talk to you for more than about five minutes a day.”

“Okay, five minutes a day it is, then,” Steve said.  “Over breakfast, maybe?  Is seven thirty good for you?”

Fury did not _quite_ cackle.  He was a few decibels shy of cackling.

“Too late?” Steve asked obliviously.  “Well, early to bed and early to rise, as they say…how’s seven?”

Tony hit his head against his desk a few times.

“Right, seven it is!”

 

 **.End.**


	3. In Her Shoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a little get-together with Natasha, Rhodey, Pepper, and Pete, Tony wakes up in a strange place and goes poking through someone else's closet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one i blame on MerianMoriarty and [the marvel kink meme](community.livejournal.com/marvel_kink)...  the prompt she gave me went something like this:  _there's a prompt that i would love to see made into a gen/humor fic: "Tony and Pepper: The strange day he realized that he and Pepper wore the same shoe size." i prefer movieverse (liek omg another role that RDJ fully OWNED and was hot as hell doing it), but you can stick with disgustingly-angsty-616!Tony if you want..._
> 
> and...well, Gwyneth as Pepper really just writes herself.
> 
>  **warnings:**   iron man movieverse (a little au-ish, because i like the 616 lineup better).  bad 616 references.  shameless pre-slash (TonyxSteve).  implied femslash (NatashaxPepper lolwut).  language: pg (primetime tv).
> 
>  **pairing:**   Tony/Steve pre-slash, implied Natasha/Pepper femmeslash.
> 
>  **timeline:**   let's call it ~3 years after the first movie, with the Avengers firmly established, Tony and his entourage moved to Manhattan, etc.  a month after **It's Swell**.
> 
>  **disclaimer:**   all the characters belong to someone not me.  no, really.  if i owned Captain America, i would never leave the house...
> 
>  **notes:**   1) again, in my mind Alicia Silverstone is Carol and James Spader is Hank.  i have no idea who would play the twins (before First Class, Moriarty suggested James McAvoy for Pietro, but i'm not completely sold on her zany ideas and he made a great young!Xavier anyway).  2) lol, manslut!Tony is my favorite flavor, in case you hadn't guessed.  3) p.s. looking back, ChrisEvans!Cap could totally just slip his way right into these movie-verse fics and be right at home.

**In Her Shoes**

 

It had started innocently enough.

No, really.  Why does no one believe that any story about Tony Stark can possibly start innocently?

It wasn’t an opera, or a fundraiser, or a white-tie ball, or even a cocktail party—it was just a casual get-together.  Just Rhodey and Natasha and Pepper and Pete.  Fury would gripe that he was corrupting his fellow Avengers, but Tony maintained that he was trying to build trust, and if any of the others had stopped looking at him like he was an alcoholic scab on the face of the human race, they would have been welcome to show up to the penthouse that day, too (now, if he’d been dragging poor oblivious Steve to a bar as the perfect wingman, _that_ would be ‘corrupting his fellow Avengers’).  Carol seemed to think Tony was womanizing scum (okay, so he kind of _was_ , but he liked to think he pulled it off), the twins were ‘too busy’ to come to a friendly little Avengers party, Hank and Steve probably wouldn’t know a good time (or a sexual advance) if it launched nuclear weapons at them…

So instead of something along the lines of a mixer, it turned into a night of drinking and laughing and playing strip versions of about a dozen different games (and Natasha was ridiculously good at strip Battleship), soon after which Peter had tipsily excused himself (not so surprising, since he had a pretty red-haired wife downstairs in their room).

Morning was the point at which things began to get odd.

When Tony woke up, he was _not_ at the Stark Tower penthouse or the Avengers suite just below it.  He wasn’t at the beach house in Malibu (which wouldn’t have been impossible).  It wasn’t any building he remembered owning, in fact.  And he was pretty sure he was mostly naked…yyyyyeah, scratch the ‘mostly.’

That was fine, he could work with that.  Naked, strange place, someone else’s bed (not such an unfamiliar situation, really)…someone else’s bed that had been made neatly around him and smelled faintly of honeydew (okay, so it was someone thoughtful and tidy).

There was something itchy under his left shoulder, and upon inspection this proved to be a lacy black bra that he remembered seeing on a certain spunky Russian during strip Twister.

Ah.  Natasha’s place, then.  She didn’t seem like a honeydew person, but to each her own.

He looked absently for his clothes and didn’t see any.  Well, maybe the girls were playing a prank on him.  Maybe Rhodey was trying to teach him a lesson by hiding his clothes somewhere.  Yes, yes, terrible punishment, _that_ would teach him to get naked and drunk with beautiful female coworkers.  Just wait until the _next_ mixer, where he would damn well _drug_ and _kidnap_ Steve and Hank to get them to show up.

Never one to be stymied by inconvenience (or nudity), Tony hopped out of bed and went to inspect the contents of the closet.  He was not above cross-dressing in public if the necessity arose, but it was surprising how many women had unisex things like oversized shirts and baggy sweat pants lying around.  ‘Laundry day’ clothes, Pepper called them.  PMS clothes, more likely, but he figured that if _he_ had persistent cramps, backache, bloating, and fatigue, he’d want to wear comfy, loose-fitting clothes, too; so he didn’t say anything.

Nnnnope, not there.  The closet seemed to be stuffed-to-bursting with women’s power suits, all with the same (very precise) length of skirt.  There were some very handsome designer heels, though, and in a promising size.  Suit.  Suit.  Boring business dress.  Suit.  Zillion different blouses and camisoles.  Ooh, jackpot—slinky black dress.

Well, Tony Stark was nothing if not secure, and his sense of humor was quirky and adventurous at the best (i.e. soberest) of times…  With no masculine clothing in easy evidence, why not have a little fun?  Let’s see…yeah, that dress might actually fit.  A little snug in places, perhaps, and he might not be able to zip it all the way, but at least his ass would look fabulous.

He was still deciding on a pair of shoes to try when he spotted _Pepper’s_ cell phone on the bedside table (just an absent glance, and oh, my, wasn’t that a familiar little Blackberry?).  Pepper had left her phone next to Natasha’s bed with Tony tucked naked between the sheets?  _That_ was promising.  Perhaps a threesome had occurred at some point.  Feeling nosy and mischievous, he snatched it up and pulled up the photos.  After all, they’d been spectacularly drunk, surely someone would have been taking incriminating cell phone pictures…

“Oh, Pepper, you never disappoint,” he said happily upon spying a sleeping Rhodey sporting a silver sharpie mustache.  Other than that, the pictures seemed to feature an awful lot of cleavage, and— _well_.  “Way to go, _Pepper_.” 

He turned the phone, tilted his head.

It was still a picture of a mostly-naked Natasha kissing a mostly-naked Pepper, no matter which way he looked at it.

Shrugging, he turned the phone off (after forwarding the photo to himself, of course) and tossed it to the bed, returning to his little dress-up session.

He’d just decided that a Roman collar was very flattering to his jaw (even with the glow of the arc reactor peeking through the black silk) when the door opened.

“Tony, are you awake?”

Pepper.  Interesting.

“I just took your suit to have it laundered—you threw up on it sometime around three, and—”

He heard the distinctly recognizable sound of car keys hitting the floor (because it was Pepper, and if she had to drop _something_ , it wouldn’t be his suit).

“Tony, _what_ are you—are those my shoes?  Those are my shoes!  Those are my _seven-hundred-dollar_ shoes!  A-and my _three-thousand-dollar_ dress!  Oh, my _God_ , Tony!”

He turned to look at himself in the full-length mirror on the inside of the closet door.  “Well, they’re _very_ comfortable, and the sequins are a nice touch—just that little bit extra, unobtrusive while still being eye-catching.  Did _you_ know we wore the same shoe size?  I find it a pleasant shock.”

“ _Why_ are you wearing—no.”  Pepper closed her eyes, waved her hands, shook her head.  “I don’t want to know.  I don’t want to know why you woke up in a strange place with no clothes and invited yourself into someone else’s closet— _my_ closet, and if you stretch that dress, I’ll _kill_ you, and not even _Rhodey_ will ever find the body.  Oh, God, Steve was right, I should never have let you touch a drop of that gin.”

“Ah, Steve’s a stick-in-the-mud,” Tony dismissed, still admiring himself.  “I dunno, they say black is very slimming, and it _does_ make my ass look great, but maybe something a little more plunging in the back, like the blue thing I got you for your birthday a couple years ago, just before the whole Iron Monger thing.  What d’you think, Pepper?”

“I think I’m going to leave your suit on the foot of the bed and go back to the tower and _not_ answer any questions people ask me about my boss vanishing from a, quote, casual get-together, unquote, and reappearing in my apartment wearing my Gucci dress and my Prada shoes.”  She retrieved her phone from where he’d tossed it on the bed.  “I have some calls to make, and if you’re not wearing your own clothes by the time I’m done, I’ll tell Carol _and_ Wanda _and_ Natasha about this interesting little episode.”

“Well, if Natasha likes _you_ in Prada, it can’t hurt _my_ chances.”

“Oh, my _God_ , Tony.  _Stop_.”

“Tell the guys, too, if you really want.  Rhodey’ll get a laugh off the look on Hank’s face, at least.”

“Ugh, this day cannot get any _stranger_.”

“Now, Pepper, don’t say that,” Tony chided.  “The day can always get _stranger_.  There could be an alien invasion.  Steve could be gay, and I can’t say I’d mind _that_ bit of strangeness.  M. Night Shyamalan could make a movie with a twist that’s actually surprising.  We’ve had stranger days, haven’t we?  What about Christmas Eve in Morocco?”

“Don’t remind me.  Ever again.”  It seemed to occur to her that her phone hadn’t been where she’d left it.  “ _Tony_!  You went through my _phone_ , too?!”

He had the good grace to look sheepish.  “I was hoping to find some incriminating photographs from last night.”

She looked like she wanted to hit him.  Or break her phone.  Or break her phone on his face.  Then she took a cleansing breath and smiled.

“Uh-oh,” Tony said.  “Oh, no, I don’t think I like that smile.  What’s that smile for?  Pepper?”

“Tony?  Say ‘cheese.’”  She took a picture.

Okay, so she’d taken a picture.  She’d never dare send it to anybody important, because then he’d be out of a job and then _she’d_ be out of a job.  “Pepper?  Pep?  What are you doing?  Are you sending that to someone?  Who are you sending that to?  Nick?  Rhodey?  Pete?”

“Steve,” she said brightly.  “With a very, _very_ audacious little email attached.  Oh, Tony, you utter _minx_.  It’s cruel, I know, but I think he’ll recover from the trauma, in time.  Meanwhile, you can suffer through sitting next to a blushing Captain America on your next few missions.”

“Oh, ha ha,” he snorted, but took the hint and reached for the zipper of the black dress.  “Y’know, that’s a bad joke even for _you_.”

“Not joking,” she sang out as she left the room.

 

 **.End.**


	4. Lost in Translation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony is not avoiding Steve. It's not avoiding if it's only been a day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **warnings:**   iron man movieverse (a little au-ish, because i like the 616 lineup better).  bad 616 references.  shameless pre-slash (TonyxSteve).  language: pg (primetime tv).
> 
>  **pairing:**   Tony/Steve pre-slash.
> 
>  **timeline:**   let's call it ~3 years after the first movie, with the Avengers firmly established, Tony and his entourage moved to Manhattan, etc.  later in the day of **In Her Shoes**
> 
>  **disclaimer:**   all the characters belong to someone not me.  no, really.  if i owned Captain America, i would never leave the house...and neither would he
> 
>  **notes:**   1) notes?  let me get back to you on that.  if you have specific questions, comment and i'll add them here.
> 
>  **p.s.** i am aware that Dummy's name is actually Dum-E. (and You's name is actually U. i can't remember the third bot's name...)

**Lost in Translation**

 

Tony was _not_ avoiding Steve.

It just happened that, in the hectic, slightly hungover aftermath of the little soiree with Natasha and Pepper and Rhodey and Pete, he was enormously busy.

And Rhodey had brought another batch of ‘non-critical lab equipment’ with him, including Dummy (that left only one big box of knick-knacks and any spare parts for the cars).

It couldn’t be considered avoiding until it stretched on for more than a day.

“—and the Quin team still needs your okay on the latest blueprint,” Pepper was saying, keeping up as he strode toward the private express elevator down the hall from his office.

“They’re not gonna get it until they clean up the wiring to the rear control hatches,” he replied easily, loosening his tie and unbuttoning his cuffs.  Parties were one thing, but his true playtime would always be tinkering in his lab.  He’d been looking forward to having another autonomous assistant again, and in spite of the rudimentary AI’s shortcomings, he would always have a soft spot for Dummy.

“Okay,” Pepper said, making a note.  “Marcus wants to hear your thoughts on R&D’s latest electronic countermeasures.”

“Tell him I’ll email him.  Eventually.”

“Reed Richards wanted to discuss repulsor theory and applications for large vehicles like medical transports.”

“I’ll call him once I’m actually awake tomorrow.”

“And Steve wanted to talk to you.”

Tony hid a wince by tilting his chin up to unbutton his collar.  “Rhodey still around?  I could use some good conversation while I unpack Dummy’s attachments.”

“You can’t avoid the man forever, Tony; you have breakfast with him every morning.”

“I’m not avoiding him.  It’s not avoiding when it’s only been a day.”

“Mm-hm.  Be sure to tell _him_ that.”

The elevator stopped, opened onto the glass-walled panorama of Tony’s lab with someone peering inside.  A tall, blond someone.

“Steve,” Tony said, shooting a dark look at Pepper (she contrived to look innocent).

Steve didn’t quite jump, but he turned very quickly.  “Oh!  Tony.  Hi.”  He gave a nervous grin.

Tony shoved his jacket toward Pepper a little more harshly than was strictly necessary.  “Jarvis, when we moved in almost six months ago, I gave you a very short, very specific list of people to allow out of that elevator.”

 _~It seems you did, sir.  For some strange reason, Captain Rogers’ name was not added to the list upon his reanimation.  Nor, as it happens, were any of the Avengers’ names.  Miss Potts took the liberty of amending the situation.~_

“Did she,” Tony grumbled.  “I trust Colonel Fury’s name _didn’t_ get amended onto that list.”

 _~Of course not, sir.~_

He keyed into the lab, rubbing his hands with anticipation as he approached the pair of large crates.  Behind him, he heard what sounded like Pepper ushering Steve into the lab.

“So, I checked my email today,” Steve said.  “Jarvis still has to help me, but I think I’m getting the hang of it.”

“Really?” Tony said with forced nonchalance, unlocking the nearest crate and thumbing open the latches.  “Great.  You’ll be on Twitter before you know it.”

“I, uh…I got your email from this morning.”

Oh, look, attachments.  Extinguisher, penlight, spotlight, floodlight, grip, wrench, screwdriver…  “Yeah, Pepper was teaching me a lesson for overindulging and invading her closet.  That’s all.”

“Oh.”

Tony imagined he caught a disappointed note in Steve’s voice, and wondered absently just _what_ Pepper had written in that “audacious little email.”  He knocked on one end of the other crate, heard an answering knock from the opposite end.

Steve waved a hand.  “I mean, yeah.  Of course.  I figured it was something like that.  Y’know.  Practical joke.”

“Yeah.  Hey, could you gimme a hand with this real quick?  Rhodey didn’t mark the crates, and Dummy ended up on his side.  He’ll be a real pain to turn right-side-up on my own.”

Steve wandered over.  “Sure.  Which way’s up?”

“This end.”

And Steve picked the thing up like it weighed next-to-nothing, turned it the right way around, and carefully set it back down (Tony pretended not to be admiring the view).  “There.”

“Thanks.”

“Well, now that’s all sorted out,” Steve said, gesturing vaguely toward the elevator.  “I’ll, uh…go get some dinner.  See you at breakfast.”

“Right.”

The lab door slid open and closed.  The elevator door slid open and closed.  Pepper walked over and smacked Tony in the back of the head (rather harder than he felt he could possibly deserve, since the Gucci dress had still been immaculate when he’d hung it back up in her closet).

“ _What_?” he complained.

“Tony, you _idiot_ ,” she muttered.  “That was a _perfect_ opportunity.  All you had to do was say something witty and asinine, like you would have for any cover model floozy.  _Or_ you could’ve asked me what I wrote in that email.  When _Captain America_ meets you at the elevator to talk about arranging a dinner date, you really shouldn’t say ‘Oh, it was just a prank.’  The appropriate response is ‘I’ll pick you up at seven, dress nice.’”  She hit him a few more times.  “I practically—gift-wrapped him—for you!”

“I’m supposed to know these things?!” he yelped, ducking away and rubbing at the growing bump on the back of his skull.

“I wish I still carried a clipboard, so I could hit you with _that_!” she growled.  “Any other time, you just _assume_ that _everyone’s_ interested in you, but _no_!  No, _this_ time you—you—argh!”  And she smacked his arm a couple of times for good measure.

“Ow, ow, stop hitting me already!”

She huffed for a moment, took a cleansing breath.  “You were right.  The day got stranger.  _The_ Tony Stark ransacked my closet, wore my Gucci dress and my Prada shoes, fell out of his chair with half the board of directors looking on, spilled coffee on a board member’s perky PA, and completely _fumbled_ an opportunity for a date with _Captain America_.  Next thing you know, Happy will ask me out to lunch and Carol will turn out to be an alcoholic.”

“Stranger things have happened.”

“Stop _saying_ that.  Okay.  It’s okay.  I can fix this.  I can perform impromptu open-heart battery-replacement; I can fix this.”  She straightened her blouse, ran a hand over her hair.  “All right.  The next words you say to Steve Rogers had best be either ‘good morning’ or something _ludicrously_ charming.  _I_ will go and smooth things over.  Stay here, play with your damn toys, and keep out of my way for the rest of the night.”

Tony pouted and opened the second crate while he watched Pepper stalk out of the lab.  “At least _you_ still love me, Dummy.”

The robot made a reassuring noise and patted him on the shoulder.

 

 **.End.**


	5. Smoothing It Over

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pepper smooths things over. Tony takes Steve out to breakfast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh, god.  Tony gets away from me sometimes, i swear.  he's got a mind of his own, and he keeps wanting me to write instant-gratification immediate happy ending.  I CAN'T DO THAT, TONY.  my reputation for torturing my readers with angst would be ruined.
> 
>  **warnings:**   iron man movieverse (a little au-ish, because i like the 616 lineup better).  bad 616 references.  slash (TonyxSteve).  language: pg-13 (primetime tv plus f***).
> 
>  **pairing:**   Tony/Steve slash.
> 
>  **timeline:**   let's call it ~3 years after the first movie, with the Avengers firmly established, Tony and his entourage moved to Manhattan, etc.  the morning after **Lost in Translation**.
> 
>  **disclaimer:**   all the characters belong to someone not me.  no, really.  if i owned Captain America, i would never leave the house...and neither would he
> 
>  **notes:**   1) ah, Cary Grant...  there's a lovely b&w photoshoot of RDJ in a suit and fedora where he's looking very Cary Grant.  2) JAN.  Jan rules.  i'm completely picturing Terry Farrell as Jan Van Dyne.  3) oblivious!Steve is no longer oblivious! XD  4) bitchy!Christine is bitchy, though.

**Smoothing It Over**

 

When Tony didn’t wake on his own, it was usually Jarvis who did the waking.  In his typical brusque manner, the AI would announce the date, time, weather, and number of voice and email messages.  If prodding was required, he resorted to turning the news up to uncomfortable volumes until Tony fled to the shower out of self-defense.

Occasionally, if there was a very early, very _important_ appointment, Pepper would brave the potential horrors of Tony’s bedroom to drag him out of bed.

“Up, up, _up_!” she called loudly, clapping next to his ear and startling him awake.  “Shower, shave, _now_.”

He blinked at her and rubbed his left eye.  “Muh?” he managed.

“It’s six, you’ve got time for a nice hot shower to wake you up so you don’t say anything awful and idiotic like you did yesterday.”

“I’m sorry?” he tried, too asleep still to properly remember what she meant.  “Wait…what day was yesterday?  What’d I do?”

Pepper seized his wrist and heaved.  “Come on, I’ll have your coffee ready by the time you’re done.”

So he staggered into the bathroom, switched on the shower, hopped in.  The hot water jogged his memory.

“Gift-wrapped,” he scoffed to himself, and sulkily began to lather his hair.

Pepper did indeed have his coffee by the time he finished showering and shaving, perfect as always.

“How’d the smoothing go?” he asked.

“Fine, no thanks to you,” she said.  “How could you doubt my judgment?  He was practically crying on Peter’s shoulder when I got to the suite.”

Tony made a face into his coffee mug.

She rolled her eyes and went to his closet to pick out a suit.  “He’s an _artist_ , Tony, they’re fickle and emotional creatures.  I had to lie and say that you were tired and distracted and thought he was talking about an entirely different email.”

“Speaking of which, what _did_ you put in that unholy thing?”

“Using your usual terms, I heavily implied that he’d missed a lot of fun the night before and that you’d be happy to arrange a more private gathering if he’d like to see for himself.”  She passed him a grey suit and the daffodil tie reserved for setting people at ease (she’d explained a lot about color psychology at one point, when he’d asked why she always made him wear red ties to board meetings).  “Get dressed—you’ve got fifteen minutes to be fashionably early to breakfast.  And if the first thing you say to him isn’t a variation of either ‘good morning’ or ‘you look nice today,’ I’m going to start letting random members of the press into your office.”

She disappeared, probably to do Pepper-ish things like making sure the company hadn’t run itself into the ground overnight, so Tony did as he’d been told and got dressed.  He’d just shrugged the blazer on and started looking for his phone when she reappeared.  “Pepper, have you seen my cell anywhere?”

“No phone until after breakfast,” she said sternly, handing him his wallet instead.  “You’re taking him _out_ , to a cozy little café that you mysteriously know he likes, and you’ll mysteriously know he’s decided to try creamy Chai tea this week and that he always orders their French toast with extra powdered sugar.  You will excuse yourself _no earlier_ than a quarter to eight, and you will offer to have dinner with him tonight at seven, at which point you will once again be relieved of your phone.  Happy already knows where you’re going, and he’s waiting downstairs in the Benz.”

“How do you _know_ these things?” he wondered, slightly scared.

Pepper just raised one eyebrow.

“Can I at least have my sunglasses?  You know me, daylight disagrees with me.  Seven in the morning is too bright.”

Before he’d finished making his excuse, she held out the Fedora that matched the suit.  “No sunglasses.  And you’ll take it off when you get into the café.  I will _know_ if you don’t.”

He winced as he buttoned his blazer.  “Anyone would think you were trying to turn me into a forties film star…  At least the suit’s nice and comfortable.”

“It should be,” she scoffed.  “It’s a custom Van Dyne, after all.  I believe she termed it ‘distressingly suave and debonair, just like Cary Grant.’  She even designed it to make you look taller.”

“Dear, sweet, terribly talented Janet,” he muttered, only half-sarcastic, and boarded the elevator with his hat tucked under one arm.

Pepper pressed the button before he could, pulled out her phone and contrived to look busy and secretarial.

The Avengers suite was quiet—Peter and Mary-Jane were just shuffling toward the coffeemaker, and experience said that it would be another twenty minutes before anyone else ventured out.  Steve was just coming down the hall, looking fresh from a shower.

“Tony, you’re early,” he said, surprised.

“’Morning, Steve,” Tony replied, mindful of Pepper’s threat about reporters.  “Yeah, I wanted to apologize for brushing you off last night.  Y’know, it was just such an exhausting day, I woke up late and hungover, there was a board project review, there were performance reviews, Rhodey finally brought Dummy up…”  He waved his hand.  “So, I was thinking you should let me make it up to you.  You wanna go out for breakfast?  Let’s go out for breakfast.  I know this great little café, they have the best Chai…”

“I don’t know, you’re a busy guy,” Steve wavered.  “Do you have _time_ to go out for breakfast?”

Tony turned to Pepper.  “Do I?”

She made a show of scrolling through something on her phone.  “Today?  Yes.  Lots.  I don’t need to see you back here until eight at the earliest.”

“The boss says ‘yes,’” Tony said, and put on one of his most charming smiles.

Steve fidgeted with the hem of his tee shirt.  “I’m not really dressed for anything nice…”

“Don’t be ridiculous, you look _great_ ,” Tony dismissed.  It was true—there was something honest and physical about Steve that was perfectly suited to sweats and tees.  “You’d look great in anything.  Even better in nothing.  Let’s go, before Pepper finds something for me to do.”

Steve turned red.  “L-let me just pull some shoes on, then.”

When Steve turned away, Tony glanced at Pepper, who gave him a thumbs-up.

Steve was still blushing when he stepped into the elevator.

They were all silent until Pepper got off the elevator at the floor where Tony’s ‘legitimate’ office was, when she waved at them and said, “Have fun, you two lovebirds,” which made Steve stammer and sputter.

Silence reigned again for a time.  As the elevator display ticked from thirty-four to thirty-three, Tony smirked at Steve.  “I don’t bite without permission,” he quipped.  “I promise you’ll be safe if you stand a little closer.”  Daringly, knowing he could be snapped in half if he did something Steve didn’t like, he captured Steve’s right hand and pressed a fleeting kiss to its knuckles.

Steve just squeaked and pulled his fingers free, blushing like a high schooler and covering the spot with his other hand.

So far, so good.

Tony tipped the Fedora onto his head just as the elevator opened, dipped at a low angle that would shade his eyes from the evil brightness known as sunlight.

Happy was waiting, got out of the car and opened the back door for them.

“With the whole oversleeping thing, I missed breakfast yesterday,” Tony said, once the car was in motion (he’d had the manners to set his hat in his lap as they got in).  “I didn’t get to talk to you.  What’d I miss?  How was your day?”

But his blond companion seemed flustered by the sudden overt flirting.  Always before, it had been a teasing word here, a lingering touch there—things that could be misunderstood or misconstrued—and now Tony was being plain and forward.

“Steve, this isn’t a sudden thing,” Tony told him gently.  “You’ve been thawed for two months now, and I liked you the moment I met you.  I had a little crisis of confidence for a while, but that’s been taken care of.  Being friends is nice, and I wouldn’t mind staying friends, but I’d like it if we could try dating.  In your terms, I’d like to go with you.”

“Oh,” Steve said at last, sounding like his throat was too dry.  He swallowed thickly and laughed.  “Oh, okay.  Yeah.  Yes.  Please.  That’d be…”

“Swell?” Tony offered with a grin.

Steve wrinkled his nose, but smiled.  “You’re making fun of me again.”

“Only a little.  And only because you make such great faces.”

They arrived at the café without incident and essentially without notice.  Tony stepped to the register after idly eyeing the menu.  “The blond gentleman will have a creamy Chai and an order of French toast with extra powdered suger.  I’ll have the most caffeinated mocha latte you sell and whatever you’ve got in the way of a veggie omelet.”

The girl punched the keys in a bored fashion.  “And the name to call?”

Tony considered it for a moment.  “Call for Steve.  Keep the change.”  And he passed her a fifty (it was the smallest bill he carried, as a general rule).

She eyed the bill, eyed him, held it up to the light, slowly and deliberately marked it with her counterfeit marker, waited to see if it would turn dark (it didn’t), then shrugged and stuck it in the drawer before ringing up the change and dumping it into the jar labeled ‘tips.’

“How’d you know?” Steve asked, picking a table next to the window.

“Magic,” Tony replied with a grin.  “Interesting choice of seating—you like watching the people, don’t you?”

“People are interesting,” Steve said with a shrug.  “And I’m still not quite used to the way things work, yet, so I consider it a learning experience.  But what about you?  We’ve been eating breakfast together for a month solid and all I’ve learned about you past the press releases and company history briefings is that you like your coffee strong, blond, and too sweet for anybody’s health.”

“Same way I like my bedmates,” Tony joked reflexively.  “That didn’t come out right.”

Steve didn’t say anything.

Sighing, Tony leaned his elbows onto the table.  “I’m attracted to tall blonds.  It doesn’t mean I take them all to bed, and it doesn’t mean that’s all I’m after.  I mean, I’m not trying to be crass.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Steve pointed out quietly.

“Look, I know what kind of reputation I have,” Tony went on.

“I didn’t _say_ anything,” Steve said again.  “And I actually don’t know much about your reputation.”

“Oh.”  Tony shifted a little.  “Sorry about that, I just get a little defensive sometimes.”

“It’s okay.  You’re not a morning person.”

Tony laughed wrily.  “You figured that out, huh?”

Steve just gave a weak little half-grin.

In the awkward pause, Tony groaned and rubbed his eyes.  “Wow, I am _all_ kinds of pathetic, huh?  I’m nocturnal by nature, I hate mornings.  Left to myself, I’d sleep from four to noon.  I used to wake up at eight, miserable and dreading the day ahead.  Now I get up at six-thirty, excited because I have the chance to be around you for the ten minutes it takes to chat and drink my coffee.”

The tips of Steve’s ears were turning red.  “I think it’s kinda nice,” he mumbled.  “If you want, we could reschedule.  I’m fine with having our breakfast at eight.”

“No,” Tony said, waving a hand.  “No, it’s good for me.  Besides, you get up at oh-dark-thirty and jog halfway around the island, right?  You’d be bored for an hour if we had breakfast later.”

“That’s—” Steve began, but was interrupted by someone at the counter calling Steve’s name for their food.

Almost as soon as Steve left the table, a certain pretty (but vicious) blonde reporter stole his seat.

“Christine,” Tony growled with a frozen smile.

“Hello, Tony,” she purred.

“Your editor must _really_ hate you if she’s siccing you on me again.  I’m boring these days.”

“Tony, not everything’s about you,” she retorted with a sassy smirk.  “Women across the country are dying to sink their teeth into Captain America.  He’s hot property.  USDA Prime.”

Tony had to work hard to keep his face blank, and grudgingly conceded to himself that she was completely right.  “Would you like a napkin to wipe up your drool?” he offered.

“Funny, I was going to say the same thing to you.  Not satisfied with Agent Romanov’s ample charms anymore?”

“I think you’ll agree that Agent Romanov’s ample charms are in a different category altogether, and you’re comparing apples to oranges.”

“Pumpkins to zucchini?”

He flinched.  “You have a filthy mind, Christine.”

“I was talking about squash, Tony.  What were _you_ talking about?”

“Miss Everhart, what a surprise!” Steve said, setting down their food and offering his hand.  “Y’know, it still knocks me for something of a loop that dames these days want their hands shook instead of kissed…”

She took it and gave it a firm shake.  “I wouldn’t say no to either from a gentleman of your caliber, Captain Rogers.  I was just getting my morning cup when I saw poor Tony all alone over here and thought to myself, ‘Oh, Christine, doesn’t he look so dismal and depressing?’  I see I needn’t have worried.”

Tony sipped his coffee.  “Christine, do you hate me because we slept together or because we didn’t _keep_ sleeping together?”

She shot him a venomous look.  “Captain, I believe you promised me an exclusive interview.  My readers are dying to know if you have any idea what sort of devil pays your rent.  Doesn’t it bother you that the Avengers, a group of people supposedly dedicated to saving lives and promoting peace, is being bankrolled by a man who glibly said he liked being known as the ‘merchant of death’?  Or did Mr. Stark neglect to mention the hundreds of thousands of refugees and other civilians his company helped massacre by selling weapons to the highest bidder?”

“You are, as always, a _surgeon_ of context, Christine,” Tony said sweetly.  “I wonder if you would care to _fuck off and die_ somewhere before I sue you for harrassment.  Feel free to quote that, I look forward to seeing you slaughter the intended meaning.”

Christine stood and smiled with poisonous civility.  “Don’t take my word for it, Captain.  You can look it up in any library.  Or have Jarvis Google it for you.”

When she was gone, they sat in awkward silence again, picking at their food.

“She took it all out of context,” Tony said after a while.

“She’s a reporter,” Steve replied evenly.  “Slanted and dirty press aren’t an invention of the twenty-first century, Tony—I understand that you have to sometimes take what they say with a grain of salt.  Did she do it for a story that she didn’t end up getting?  Is that why she’s holding a grudge?”

Tony blinked.

Steve paused and blinked back.

“Did she do what?”

“Sleep with you.”

Tony shook his head.  “Just checking.  Probably.  I think she was hoping to dig around my house.  Pepper kicked her out before she could find anything fun.”

“Don’t be so shocked.  Even in the thirties and forties, there were guys and dolls who used sex to get what they wanted.  Hell, that’s been going on for _centuries_ , in various cultures.”

“Well, that’s my well-deserved reputation,” Tony said sharply.  “I manage to find all the pretty people in the world who’re willing to use sex to try and take advantage of a rich, bored, _lonely_ guy.  Sometimes I thwart them, sometimes I don’t.”

“ _I’m_ not the one you’re mad at.”

Tony sighed again and fidgeted with his coffee cup.  “I know.  I’m sorry.  I want this to _work_.  I _really_ like you, and the last person I _really_ liked took me for a goddamn ride.”

Steve reached out and pressed both hands over Tony’s on the surface of the paper cup.  “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

Slowly, Tony gave a lopsided grin and tugged one hand free to poke the tip of Steve’s nose.  “I trust you.  After all, if you can’t trust Captain America, who _can_ you trust?”

Steve smiled, showing dimples.  “You’re making fun of me again.”

“I’m not,” Tony promised.  “And she was right—you should Google ‘Tony Stark’ and ‘merchant of death’ when we get back.”

The smile faded.  “No, Tony.  I want to hear _your_ side of whatever she was talking about.”

Tony arched an eyebrow skeptically.  “My side?”

But Steve’s eyes were steady and earnest as ever.  “Yes.  This isn’t a sudden thing for me, either.  That very first meeting, all I could think of for days was how charismatic and sharp-tongued you were, even when you stuck your foot in your mouth.  Like you said, being friends is nice—and you have been a _great_ friend to me—but I know myself well enough to know that I want more.  You said you want to try it, and people are a lot more easygoing about it than they were in my day, so…”  He shrugged, and frowned.  “I _do_ like you, Tony— _really_ like you—but everything I know about you has come from either watching you or being handed pieces of paper by Miss Potts.  So, even if you don’t like talking about it, even if you think I should hear the same version of events as the rest of the world, I want to hear it from _you_.”

Tony was speechless.  In his entire life, only three people had honestly wanted to hear his version of things for anything but technical expertise, and Rhodey and Pepper had always asked with an even heavier sense of parental exasperation than his mother had.  He’d never had someone ask simply because they _preferred his version_.

Steve leaned down a little to look up at him in concern.  “Tony?  Are you okay?  Is it something I said?”  He sat back with a sigh, took his hands away.  “I went too far.  I’m sorry, it’s none of my business.  We’ve barely been going together for half an hour, and here I am, nosing into things.”

Tony managed to catch Steve’s hands before he could put them in his lap or go back to eating.  “No,” he said, and his voice sounded strange to his own ears.  He swallowed.  “No, Steve, it’s not that.  I just…you surprised me, that’s all.  And I like that you want me to be the one to tell you.”

That adorable blush was back, creeping over Steve’s nose.  He looked away and cleared his throat.  “…the food’s getting cold,” he mumbled.

“Yeah,” Tony admitted, but still held Steve’s hands a few seconds more while he watched pale eyelashes veil blue eyes.  “You know, if I tell you about my notorious playboy history now, I won’t have anything interesting to say at dinner.”

If Steve blushed any harder, he’d look like a blond tomato.  “Oh?” he asked lightly, still avoiding Tony’s gaze.  “And who were you planning to have around at dinner that you’d need interesting things to say?”

“Hmmmm.”  Tony idly traced the creases of Steve’s palms, felt them twitch a little in ticklish reflex.  “I was hoping a certain gorgeous blond super-soldier might grace me with his presence.”

“What time were you hoping for this super-soldier of yours to be ready?”

“Seven?  Have Pepper pick something out for you to wear.”

Steve grinned a little.  “You trust Miss Potts to dress me for dinner?”

“Why not?  She usually picks _my_ clothes.  Besides, if it were up to me, you wouldn’t be wearing much, and we wouldn’t make it out of the elevator.”

“I thought you _weren’t_ trying to be crass,” Steve said mildly, and looked at him.

“You could inspire lewd thoughts in a _saint_ , and my will is weak.  And I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of making you blush.”

“Eat your breakfast,” Steve grumbled, still blushing as he pulled his hands away and went back to his French toast.

 _Go slow_ , Tony reminded himself, quelling the urge to drag Steve back to the car and smother him with kisses.

He wasn’t used to self-control when it came to sex…sex was something that he could make meaningless, something he could divorce from important things like the schematics perpetually taking shape in his brain, the simple satisfaction of building things with his bare hands, the deeper aches of loneliness and need.  If the sex didn’t mean anything to him, he couldn’t be hurt when it turned out that it didn’t mean anything to his partner.

But Steve was old-fashioned.  Steve probably wouldn’t even _kiss_ on the first date, let alone have sex.  Tony didn’t want to push, didn’t want Steve to feel pressured.  The last thing in the world he wanted was for Steve to run away from him.  There was something deep inside him that said, _This is it.  This is fate.  This is the one._   After almost two solid decades of fucking things up in his adult life (relationships, the world, responsibilities), here was the one thing he couldn’t afford to ruin, the one thing that couldn’t be fixed if he broke it.  The sudden weight of the feeling (of the _certainty_ ) made him breathless as he watched Steve eat.

 _My God, I can imagine growing old with his person_ , he thought, and he hadn’t felt that way since the first time he’d had his heart broken.

Steve paused, noticing that Tony was staring.  “What?” he mumbled with his mouth full.

Tony smiled, but didn’t trust his voice.

“What?” Steve repeated after he swallowed, starting to blush again.  “Have I got something on my face?”

Still smiling, Tony shook his head.  “No, your face is perfect.  I just like watching you.”

“You sound like a lovesick teenager,” Steve laughed.

“I kinda feel like one.”

The tips of Steve’s ears were turning red once more, and he was suddenly _very_ interested in his plate.  “Careful, Mr. Stark; I’ll start to think you’re in love with me.”

“Hmm,” he said neutrally.

 

 **.End.**


	6. Cosmic Realizations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony finds out he's head-over-heels for a guy as wholesome as homemade apple pie. Pepper promptly sends them on a dinner date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sigh* Tony went all sappy and lovesick-puppy on me again.  mind you, this is the result of me reining him in...a lot......
> 
>  **warnings:**   iron man movieverse, which is something like the Marvel Ultimates universe so far (a little au-ish, because i like the 616 lineup better).  bad 616 references.  slash (TonyxSteve).  language: pg-13 (primetime tv plus f***).
> 
>  **pairing:**   Tony/Steve.
> 
>  **timeline:**   let's call it ~3 years after the first movie, with the Avengers firmly established, Tony and his entourage moved to Manhattan, etc.  starting just after the breakfast date in **Smoothing It Over**.
> 
>  **disclaimer:**   all the characters belong to someone not me.
> 
>  **notes:**   1) oh, matchmaker!Pepper...i don't think we'll ever get tired of you.  or babysitter!Pepper.  2) hah.  Ty/Tony was meant for angst, it really was.  3) a geek overload scene between RDJ and Ioan Gruffudd would make my day.  i need Reed Richards to meet Tony Stark in the movies.  4) when Pepper talks about shirts with "very juvenile slogans" on them, i'm picturing some of the really lame shirts that Sands wore in Once Upon a Time in Mexico. XD
> 
>  **PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:**  
>  Since so many of you seem incapable of reading previous comments before you so kindly inform me of a 'mistake' that several people have already pointed out -- I am not ignorant of the fact that Soviet Russia was allied with the US during WWII. However, I am ALSO not ignorant of the fact that Stalin was a fucking psychopath, and quite a lot of Americans knew it. I'm not sure if it's just getting left out of your history books or you don't remember it, but there was a not insignificant portion of the populace and politicians who believed very strongly that the US might be at war with Stalin soon after WWII, very much like the situation when the US aided Saddam Hussein against Iran. People said, "Wow, this guy's insane...he's going to be a problem."

**Cosmic Realizations**

 

“Well, this is me,” Steve said unnecessarily as the elevator opened onto the front room of the Avengers suite.  “Thank you for breakfast.”

“Thank _you_ ,” Tony corrected.  “It was…enlightening.  See you at seven?”

“Seven,” Steve confirmed with a nod and a bashful little smile, and turned to leave.

Tony caught his hand at the last moment, kissed his knuckles, let him go and waved as the elevator door closed.  “Jarvis?”

_~Yes, sir?~_

“Where’s Pepper?”

_~Miss Potts is waiting in the penthouse, sir.~_

“Good.  Let’s go.”

The elevator started moving again, opened after barely five seconds.

Pepper jumped up from the couch and hurried over, hands clenched around his phone.  “So?  How’d it go?  Tony?  Tony, what’s wrong?  Why are you making that face?  What happened?”

He walked around her (pushed the fedora at her on the way), feet dragging, feeling like all the energy had left him, and flopped face-down onto the couch.

“Oh—oh, _God_ , was it _that bad_?  Oh, Tony…  Happy said that awful Everhart bitch showed up—was she saying horrible things again?”

He laughed a little.  “The day Christine Everhart doesn’t say something horrible to or about me will be the day hell freezes over and the devil puts on a fuzzy red hat and coat.  And it didn’t actually go badly.  That’s the problem.”

“Problem?  Wait, I don’t understand—if it went _well_ , then where’s the problem?”

He closed his eyes with a groan.

“Oh, _Tony_ ,” Pepper said again, this time in exasperation.  “You did _not_ molest Captain America in a café bathroom.”

“No, I didn’t!” he yelped, sitting up enough to glare at her.

She held her hands up in self-defense.  “Okay, so the problem with the date going well wasn’t related to doing untoward things to poor Steve.”

He flopped back down.  “No, it wasn’t.  Much bigger problem than that.  Big, _big_ problem.”

Slender calves and tasteful pumps came into view, followed by knees and hands and concerned eyes as Pepper knelt next to him.  “What is it?” she whispered.  “Tony, you know you can tell me anything.  What’s this big, big problem with having a nice breakfast date with a handsome guy you really like?”

It took him a little while to feel like he could make the words come out without bursting into tears (which was a very silly, very stupid, very _embarrassing_ feeling).  He held up a finger and grinned wrily.  “He’s ‘the one,’” he whispered back, and his voice cracked in spite of his best efforts.

She gasped and covered her mouth with both hands.  “Oh, Tony, that’s _wonderful_!  A little _girly_ …but wonderful.”

He groaned again and hid his face against the couch cushion.  “It’s _awful_.  Even putting aside the fact that I’m completely _wrong_ for him and the press will _lynch_ me, there’s the fact that I have _no idea_ what to do.”

“What do you _mean_ , you don’t know what to do?” Pepper chuckled, rubbing his back.  “You seemed to do just fine winning the hearts of all those swooning society girls.”

Tony turned abruptly, gripped her hand and stared up at her.  “What do I _do_ , Pep?” he breathed.  “I’ve never done this _right_ before, you _know_ that.  How the hell do I go about wooing _Captain America_ , for God’s sake?”

She sighed.  “Well, you start by deciding whether what you’re after is _Captain America_ or _Steve Rogers_.  Then you remember that Steve Rogers was a shy, sickly art student from a poor neighborhood, who wasn’t allowed to serve his country until a scientist managed to genetically alter him.  And you go on from there.  Did you at least remember to ask him to dinner tonight?”

“He said yes.  I told him I’d send you to dress him.  Figured you’d end up deciding where we’re going and what we’ll eat anyway.”

“That’s a start,” she said.

“Should I get flowers?  D’you think he’d like flowers?  Too pushy?  Too girly?”

Pepper laughed, covered her mouth with her free hand.  “You sound like a little boy going on his first date.”

He shook his head.  “Pepper, _please_.  I can’t screw this up.”

She heaved another sigh.  “Then the first thing to do is _be yourself_.  Neither one of you will be happy if you start a relationship with false impressions and unreasonable expectations.  The second thing to do is tell him that _he’s_ setting the pace.  You are a certifiable disaster in the area of choosing a reasonable pace for a physical relationship.  Third…”

After a few seconds of silence, Tony raised his eyebrows expectantly.  “Third?”

Pepper pursed her lips.  “Third, don’t tell Rhodey until you and Steve have been dating for a while, or Steve will end up scared off by a threat of graphic violence.  I’m thinking ‘break his heart and I’ll break your legs’ would fall short by several degrees.”

He gave a nervous (and slightly soggy) laugh.  “Good ol’ Rhodey…my knight in shining armor since the dreaded reign of Tiberius the Cruel and Unusual.”

She smiled.  “Come on, you can’t spend all day moping on the couch.  You need to call Dr. Richards about repulsor theory.  That should keep you occupied while I make dinner preparations.  Don’t forget to email Marcus about ECM.  I’ll be back with lunch.”  Then she passed him his phone and kissed his forehead (and he really _did_ feel like a little boy fretting over his first date when she did that).

“Mm-kay,” he conceded, and called Reed while she boarded the elevator.

As often happened when Tony and Reed had an excuse to talk about science, they got a little carried away and ended up in a web-conference, batting tweaked schematics back and forth and scribbling out a million calculations on whatever surfaces they could find.  When Pepper brought lunch, he waved her off and kept talking about adaptation of the myriad control surfaces needed for repulsor flight.  In fact, they babbled away about scaling and power sources and optimum materials until Sue literally dragged Reed away from the computer for dinner.

Tony glanced at the clock in sudden panic.  Six thirty.  He jumped up.  “Pepper!”

On cue, she jogged in with his favorite jeans, a well-loved pair of black Converse sneakers, and a navy Stark Industries tee-shirt.  “I’m buying you shirts tomorrow,” she muttered.

“What?  Why?” he asked as he shrugged out of his blazer and worked his tie loose.

“Because the only navy shirts you have that aren’t formal have very _juvenile_ slogans on them.  Or they’re company shirts…at least Steve won’t be ashamed to be seen with you in one of those.”

“Ah, navy.  Because navy is tranquil solidarity.”

“And his favorite color is blue.  Have I ever been wrong about your clothes?”

He grinned and draped his button-down over his desk chair.  “No, my dear Miss Potts, you have not.  Do I smell okay?  Do I have time for a shower?”

Rolling her eyes, she dumped his clothes on his desk and gave him a proprietary sniff.  “You’re fine, and no, you do _not_ have time for a shower.  Happy’s taking you guys to Steve’s favorite pizza place in Brooklyn, where you will be a slightly less perverted version of yourself, you will let Steve know that he’s the one robbing this train, you will _not_ drink anything alcoholic, and you will _not_ scare him off with a confession of undying love on your second date.  Finish getting dressed and calm down while I go keep Steve from hopping into a three piece suit.”

So she left (snatching up his phone on her way), and he pulled on the tee-shirt and changed his pants and shoes.  Then he had to sit down and remind himself (several times) that Steve had _said_ he liked Tony, and that Pepper and Happy would be helping him out.

Pepper returned just before seven by Tony’s watch, and shooed him along into the elevator with a kiss on the cheek and a hurried call of “Good luck!” as the door closed.

_~Do remember to breathe, sir.  It’s generally considered beneficial to the success of an outing.~_

“Thank you, Jarvis,” Tony muttered.

And then the door opened again, and Steve turned with a nervous grin.

“Wow,” Tony managed.

Steve frowned at him.  “It’s a shirt and some jeans, Tony.  It’s not ‘wow’-worthy.”

In point of fact, it was a snug ‘I ♥ NY’ shirt and a pair of bootcut Levis that pointed out all the best landmarks.

Tony gestured vaguely.  “Stand between two mirrors and you’ll understand.  By the way, could you just turn around again for a few seconds while I commit that to memory?  Pepper confiscated my phone, so I can’t take a picture…”

Steve blushed and stomped into the elevator, pointedly facing Tony and folding his arms over his chest.

“That’s okay, the view from the front ain’t bad, either.”

Steve just blushed and scowled and pretended he wasn’t flattered (but Tony could tell that he _was_ ).

Tony grinned and put his hands in his pockets.  “I thought about bringing you roses, but it seemed like it might be a little too much for a casual dinner thing.”

“In my day, we got our dates flowers as often as we could afford it,” Steve said.

“Well, y’know, didn’t wanna seem too eager to please.  You might mistake me for a starry-eyed fanboy and head for the hills.”

“Can’t be any worse than the hordes of fainting dames screaming from the sidewalks on my way to ship out the first time.”

“Ah, you might be surprised by the lengths I’ll go to when it comes to hero worship,” Tony chuckled.  “So, the Great and Powerful Pepper has handed down some commandments to keep me out of trouble.”

“Oh?”

“Mm.  First Commandment:  be myself, after dragging my mind most of the way out of the gutter.”

“So far, so good,” Steve snorted.

“Second Commandment:  let you set the pace, since I’m obviously a miserable judge of how quickly I should hop into bed with someone.”

Steve shifted a little.  “Well, I won’t complain about _that_.”

“Third Commandment:  no booze for me.  Knowing my luck, getting drunk would lead to me puking on you.”

“To my experience, more than a glass of anything alcoholic leads to problems.  Brava for Miss Potts.  Is that all?”

Tony flinched.  “Eh, there were more, but those are the important ones.”

Steve nodded.  “So where are you taking me?”

Tony winced and stopped himself from automatically replying with, _‘Table, floor, bed, wherever you like.’_   “There’s this fantastic little pizzeria in Brooklyn…  I figured it’d be perfect for a casual night out.  A nice, cozy sort of ‘get to know each other’ place.”

“Sounds great,” Steve told him with a smile.  “We can sit down to a pie and you can tell me all about the infamous Tony Stark, merchant of death.”

“You mean, I can make frantic excuses,” scoffed Tony.

“Everybody comes from _somewhere_ , Tony,” Steve pointed out as they crossed the lobby.  “I always knew there had to be a reason that you feel so strongly about weapons and warfare and accountability in science.”

“And what’s _your_ reason?” Tony asked once they were in the car.  “Why did mild-mannered Steve Rogers decide to throw on a flag and bust some skulls?”

Steve raised an eyebrow.  “Bust some…?”

“Beat people up.”

“I love my country,” Steve said simply.  “America is—or _was_ , at least—a great place to be, a symbol of freedom and equality and all the things I know are right.  Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini—aside from helping an alien race trying to take over the planet, they were madmen, and the things carried out in their names were nothing short of atrocity.  Someone had to stop them.  I happened to be in the right place at the right time.”  He looked forward, at the line of tail lights ahead.  “I couldn’t _not_ do something.”

Familiar feelings of shame and self-loathing bubbled up, and Tony couldn’t bear to look at his blond companion anymore.  “It must have been nice,” he said softly, watching the people on the sidewalks outside, “knowing what was and wasn’t right and feeling like you could do something about it.”

A strong hand gripped his.  “Tony?”

Steve’s voice sounded worried, so he looked over and tried to smile.  “Steve?” he replied.

“You don’t have to tell me tonight,” Steve murmured.  “I can wait until you’re ready.”

Tony snorted.  “If we wait until I’m ready to talk about how much of a fool and a fuck-up I was for most of my life, we’ll be old and grey.”

“Don’t say that…”

“It’s true.”

Steve shook his head.  “I meant don’t call yourself a…a…”

“Fuck-up?” Tony offered with a self-deprecating grin.

Steve blushed.  “Good Lord, don’t people in twenty-first century America know any words that wouldn’t get their mouths washed out with soap?”

Tony looked back out the window.  “Hmmm…how about ‘lazy, good-for-nothing wastrel’?  Except that I was still churning out brilliant new ways to kill innocent people, so I suppose I wasn’t technically good for _nothing_ …”

“Tony, look at me.”

Sighing, he hesitantly obeyed.

Steve’s face was set, determined, and a little angry.  “Who you _were_ is just a paving stone on the path to who you _are_.  You _are_ a good man.  You _are_ my first and best friend in this strange place I used to call home.  And you _are_ …the dumbest genius I’ve ever heard of, if you can’t see just how much good you’ve accomplished.”

He’d heard it before.  Pepper had said it, and Rhodey had said it.  But he had never believed it, coming from them.  When Steve said it, he couldn’t help but believe.

Yes.  _Definitely_ the one.

He closed his eyes and smiled, brought their joined hands up and kissed Steve’s knuckles again.  “Thank you,” he breathed.

The car slid to a stop.  “Here we are, sir,” Happy said from the front seat.

“How about that pizza?” Tony offered, jerking his head toward the restaurant.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Steve replied with a smile (and _oh_ , how those dimples took Tony’s breath away).

“By the way, have I mentioned that Vogue readers voted me Most Eligible Bachelor last year?”

 

**.End.**


	7. Like Dynamite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jan decides to play the roles of snarly ex and overprotective friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jan could SO barge into any room she damn well pleased.
> 
> i have no clue what kind of bizarre AU i'm in now. XD shit, i'm just glad Tony didn't end up trying to cut himself with his salad fork or something emo like that.  he was like "i need to cry like a little girl, the better to have Steve comfort me," and i was like "wtf? Tony, you're a grown man and nobody's died lately—--you have no excuse to cry like a little girl. DON'T MAKE ME GIVE YOU A REASON TO CRY LIKE A LITTLE GIRL. *shakefist*" *rofl*
> 
>  **warnings:**   iron man movieverse, which is something like the Marvel Ultimates universe so far (a little au-ish, because i like the 616 lineup better).  bad 616 references.  slash (TonyxSteve), references to past het (TonyxRandomChicks, TonyxJan).  language: pg-13 (primetime tv plus f***).
> 
>  **pairing:**   Tony/Steve, past Tony/Jan.
> 
>  **timeline:**   let's call it ~3 years after the first movie, with the Avengers firmly established, Tony and his entourage moved to Manhattan, etc.  a few days after their first dates in **Smoothing It Over** and **Cosmic Realizations**.
> 
>  **disclaimer:**   all the characters belong to someone not me.
> 
>  **notes:**   1) run, little tomato, run!  am i the only person who can't eat a cherry tomato with a fork?  2) i wanted a domineering Jan.  so domineering!Jan is domineering.  it works out with whipped!nerd!Hank; he probably doesn't want to have to decide what to wear or who to smile at.  3) i can't resist pixie jokes with Jan.  i'm sorry.  on the upside, she probably does a fabulous Audrey impression.  and it's completely not gay that i love Audrey Hepburn movies. >_>...<_<... shutup.  my DVD collection may be an indication of a sensitive hopeless romantic, but my TiVO is ALL MAN.  4) loveable!dork!Steve is still a loveable dork.  GOLLY GEE. <3

**Like Dynamite**

 

Tony was crunching thoughtfully on a lettuce leaf as he read a long and meticulous design proposal.  With a tiny part of his attention, he was also chasing a cherry tomato around his salad plate with a plastic fork, failing again and again to skewer the little fruit.

It should be impossible for people to barge into his office—any would-be bargers would have to run the gauntlet of front desk security, elevators monitored constantly by Jarvis, executive reception, and Pepper.

Really, it just went to show that Janet Van Dyne could barge into any room she damn well pleased (or maybe that she could sweet talk her way through a den of rabid wolverines).

“Tony,” she said, and slammed the door shut behind her with a graceful flourish.

“Mmf?” he replied, as his tomato leapt for freedom.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” she muttered.

So he swallowed.  “What can I do for you, Jan?”

“The word on the grapevine is that you took Steve out to dinner last night.”

“Is it?” he asked politely.  “I’m not sure what the grapevine has to do with you needing to take time out of your day to sashay so smartly into my office, Ms. Van Dyne.  You do still prefer your maiden name?  Or should it be Mrs. Pym?”

She shuddered.  “Tony, you know very well that I love my husband dearly and will never, never, _ever_ take his name.  It would be ruining a brand.  ‘Van Dyne Designs Are Simply Divine’—cheesy and pretentious, yes, but ridiculously catchy and easy to remember.”

Tony grinned.  “Let it never be said that you don’t have a head for good advertising, Jan.  You’re avoiding the topic.  You blustered into my office in the middle of my work day when I actually happen to be working, and now you’re avoiding the topic.  I’m not sure whether to be flattered or insulted.”

“Steve isn’t like those silly bubble-headed trollops you drape over your arm at every party,” she said at last.  “Nobody cares about them, which doesn’t matter much since they’re all so self-absorbed.  Have as many of those as you want, install a damn revolving door on your bedroom to save a little time—or maybe just a trap door for rapid egress.  Charm them, do them, write their names on the list of landmarks you’ve conquered, and toss them right back where you found them.  _They_ don’t _matter_.”

“The last time you brought up this subject, you were far less flattering about it,” he pointed out, pushing back from his desk a bit so that he could fold his hands in his lap.  “I don’t think you ever admitted whether it was because the girl had worn one of your designs and spilled wine on it or because she called you a hissing gorgon.”

She strode right up to his desk and slapped her neatly manicured hands onto it.  “Steve Rogers is a good and decent man, Tony Stark.  You’re not.”

“Good?  Or decent?”

“Or a man,” she said flatly.  “You’re a little boy who likes to play with fast toys.  Fast cars, fast planes, fast women.”

“That’s because fast things make me feel alive without asking for anything _back_ ,” he snapped.  “Unlike _you_ , Janet.  Stand up straight, smile to this woman but not her husband, don’t compliment her ghastly dress, don’t wear green, stop combing your hair that way, only wear designer sunglasses, never wear a bowler on a goddamn Sunday when the moon is in conjunction with _Mars_ for _fuck’s sake_.”

And there they were, back to hostilities, back to resentment, back to finger-pointing and trying to hurt each other’s feelings.  It was amazing how quickly she could turn him from calm, collected, smooth-talking Director Stark into Tony the Bitter Ex-Boyfriend.

She stood back and straightened her jacket (elegantly simple in its fifties-inspired bolero length with a cut to flatter her pixie build).  “He’s not one of your toys, Tony,” Jan said after a while.

“When did I ever treat him like one?” he retorted.

“Just remember that you can’t weld him back together if he breaks, and you can’t scrap and rebuild if it turns out he doesn’t match your performance specs.”

And that _did_ hurt, because it wasn’t fair.  _He_ had never been the one to try to change _her_.

…and he was pretty sure that (in a purely literal, mechanical sense) he could put Steve back together just fine if he broke…

He took a slow breath.  “You know,” he said.  “It’s a shame I quit drinking so I could go out with Steve.  I would _love_ to put a bourbon stain all over that pretty dry-clean-only Hepburn-in-Sabrina-inspired Van Dyne original.  Jarvis, page Miss Potts for me.”

_~Yes, sir.~_

Pepper opened the door.

“Potts, see that Ms. Van Dyne is escorted out of the building.  She’s only welcome in the lobby and the Avengers suite from now on, and only under escort.  And if you _ever_ —and believe me, Potts, I do mean _ever_ —again let someone walk briskly to my office and slam the door open and closed without immediately calling security, your employment will be terminated without severance.”

He couldn’t look her in the face.  He glared at Jan instead.

“Yes, Mr. Stark,” Pepper said softly.  “This way, Ms. Van Dyne.”

When they were gone, he slid onto the floor under his desk and just huddled there in the shadows.

That was the thing about being a drunk—when people reminded you of what a horrible person you were, you could just laugh it off and have another drink.

Without alcohol to hide behind, with an attitude over the past few years of wanting to take responsibility…when people reminded him of what a horrible person he was, he had to sit there and take it.

Jan had always been so very good at bullying him.  She could make him feel awful and inadequate with an ease and thoroughness that rivalled Ty’s.  So he sat there, under his desk, hugging his knees like a little boy while useless thoughts of ‘she’s right’ and ‘what was I thinking?’ and ‘I’ll never be good enough for him’ (and ‘God, what I wouldn’t give for a glass of Scotch’) bounced through his head.

The door quietly opened and closed.

“I’m sorry, Tony,” Pepper said.  “I know I shouldn’t have just let her come in.  She could’ve been an assassin in disguise for all I knew.  And besides that, it was unprofessional to break protocol.”

“Mm,” he mumbled noncommittally, and wished for a drink (or two, or twelve).

He heard her cross the room, saw her lean down to look at him.  “Tony?” she asked with a perplexed frown.

“Yeah, but don’t tell anybody,” he joked feebly.  “I’m not a popular guy, you know.  Think I could hire a stunt double to step in any time a woman who hates me shows up?  He’d have to have an unbruisable ego and a complete lack of conscience.  Ideal candidate is deaf and doesn’t speak English.  Draw me up a want ad, will you?”

“I’ll cancel your appointments and get you some coffee,” Pepper suggested.  “Are you comfortable down there?  Want a pillow or anything?”

“I’m good,” he said, then grimaced.  “Okay, I’m not _good_ , that’d be a horrible lie in any meaning of the word ‘good,’ with the obvious exception of ‘good in bed.’  But I’ll be okay under here without anything.  Take the day off.  I can slink back to my room after everyone’s gone for the day.”

She didn’t say anything, but she made that worried little frown she had as she got up and left.  Five minutes later, she was back with a mug of coffee, which she set on the floor beside him.  “I’ll leave your salad in case you get hungry,” she told him.

And then she was gone.

He stared out the floor-to-ceiling window behind his desk, picking out the familiar shapes of the skyline.  Blankness, that was the thing.  If he just stopped thinking, he wasn’t bothered by all the things people said, or by the simple fact that Steve Rogers was entirely too nice and wholesome to ever date someone like Tony Stark.

Someone leaned into his line of sight, startling him.  He hit his head on the underside of his desk hard enough to see amazing blotches of color.

“Oh, gosh, I’m sorry, Tony!” Steve fretted, covering the bump on Tony’s skull with his hand.  “Gee whiz, what’re you doing under here, anyhow?  I’ve been looking all over for you…”

“Ow,” Tony said, trying to blink his vision clear.  When he managed it, he noticed how close Steve was—almost nose-to-nose.  In a very small voice, he said, “Um.  Hi.”

Steve smiled.  “Hi.  It’s almost six, you know.  Your coffee’s cold, your salad’s all wilty, and somebody stepped on your tomato.”

“Probably Jan.  Probably on purpose.”

“Oh, no,” Steve sighed.  “Janet’s such a fine lady, she really is, but she doesn’t exactly talk about you in glittering terms, does she?”

“Ohoho,” Tony chuckled mirthlessly.  “The two people on the planet who most loathe me are a fine gentleman and a fine lady.  You have no idea how comforting that is.”

“Hank does say she can be quite a fireball for such a little thing—like a stick o’ dynamite.  Is she the reason you’re hiding under here?”

“Not very manly of me, huh?” Tony said with a wry grin.

“I don’t know…exes were pretty scary even back in my day, and modern dames have a tendency to be mean and bossy when they get going.  What’d she say, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Tony sighed and sagged a bit.  “Well, chief on the list was that you’re a good and decent man, and I’m not.  I’m a little boy who likes fast toys, and I should install a trapdoor in my bedroom for all my disposable arm-ornaments.  Oh, and apparently you’re not one of my toys that I can scrap and overhaul if it doesn’t meet specs—which is a patently unfair implication, by the way, since _she_ was always the one trying to tailor _me_ to fit _her_ life.”

“Oh, _Tony_ , you don’t really believe all that garbage…”

“All that _true_ garbage,” he snorted.

Steve framed his face in strong hands.  “Hey.  You listen to me, you dumb genius:  what she said may have been true back when she knew you, but it darn well isn’t now.  Look how wrong she was—you’ve got the decency to hide in shame from the man you used to be.”

“Still not very brave,” Tony mumbled, unwilling to let go of his gloom just yet.

But Steve just smiled again.  “Only good and decent men are afraid of not being worthy of the good things in their lives.”

“Wow.  Remind me to put that on a motivational poster and stick it on the back of my door.”

“People will ask you why you keep smiling,” Steve pointed out.

“I’ll just tell them I’m thinking of the world’s most charming blond.”

Steve laughed.  “Come on, let’s go pick up some dinner.  I hear Chinese take-away is still popular.”

“Take-out,” Tony corrected.  “It hasn’t been take-away since the sixties.  And I only do Chinese if it’s the really bad kind that bears no resemblance to real Chinese food.”

“Fair enough,” said Steve.

 

**.End.**


	8. No Strings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony watches one of his nightmares play out in front of him. At least he's not at school naked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **warnings:**   iron man movieverse, which is something like the Marvel Ultimates universe so far (a little au-ish, because i like the 616 lineup better).  bad 616 references.  slash (TonyxSteve), references to past het (TonyxRandomChicks, TonyxJan) and past shota (TyxTony).  language: pg-13 (primetime tv plus f*** and s***).
> 
>  **pairing:**   Tony/Steve, past Tony/Jan, past abusive/underage Tiberius/Tony.
> 
>  **timeline:**   let's call it ~3 years after the first movie, with the Avengers firmly established, Tony and his entourage moved to Manhattan, etc.  maybe a week after **Like Dynamite**.
> 
>  **disclaimer:**   all the characters belong to someone not me.
> 
>  **notes:**   1) the title is a reference to Pinocchio.  see complicated metaphor in the fic. XD  2) am i the only one feeling a little weird about Chris Evans as Cap?  i mean...he's *already* a major marvel character.  i guess they're not planning on the Fantastic Four ever meeting the Avengers (which sucks, because Tony and Reed Richards completely need to geek out at some point).  more than that, CE does a good playboy, and a decent adorable goof, but i don't know that he can pull of the 'I AM MADE OF BADASS' moments that Steve gets (and Ultimates Steve gets them a LOT).  3) also, CE is awfully young/inexperienced to share the spotlight with RDJ.  he'd have to have his shirt off the whole time for anybody to even bother looking at him.  4) you know who would be a great Ty?  Russel Crowe.  remember Virtuosity?  XD  5) Christ on a bicycle is a great swear.  we don't have expletives like that in Japanese.  6) p.s. by this point, i was actively trying to imagine ChrisEvans!Cap.  did you spot the moment of transition in the fics before this?

**No Strings**

 

For the bulk of his adult life, Tony Stark’s nightmares focused mainly on topics of humiliation and self-loathing.

Usually, Jan and Ty were telling him what a horrible human being he was, or how stupid, or how uselessly arrogant.  Sometimes his father stepped in to say what a disappointment he’d grown up to be.  After Afghanistan, his nightmares were always about burning villages and crying children, about innocent people who’d suffered because of bright shiny weapons with his name stamped on the side.

These days—as he’d known they would—his nightmares focus around Steve.  Sometimes Jan is whispering things to him, and he tells Tony that he knows now what kind of person Tony is, doesn’t understand how he didn’t see it sooner.  Sometimes there are reporters everywhere, flashing lights and microphones and eager voices shouting intensely personal questions (whether he likes men, whether he likes _young-looking_ men, whether he likes young-looking men in _uniform_ ), shouting accusations that Tony is trying to corrupt a national icon for his own twisted ends.

And sometimes they’re at some party, and Ty is there, charming as ever, slick and smooth and effortless in the way Tony tries to emulate but has never mastered to such a degree, and Ty and Steve are having a conversation, and he’s perfect and witty, and Steve laughs and smiles and agrees with Ty’s opinions on religion and politics and today’s youth; they ignore Tony’s presence entirely.

That’s the one playing out right now—but right before his eyes, in real life, and he wants to do something childish like fling his drink in Ty’s face.

SHIELD made him throw some bullshit party so that the press and various potential clients/sponsors/whatevers can rub elbows with the Avengers (he can’t really argue against wanting to rub elbows with Carol in that Jessica Rabbit getup, or Wanda in the low-cut Van Dyne original that Jan insisted on).  Tony is sure Ty was never invited to the damn thing, because Tony would have _shot_ the first person who suggested that Tiberius Stone be allowed to come within fifty _miles_ of Tony (and Pepper and Rhodey would probably have done something similar).

But there he is, like a devil in a nunnery, happy and evil and insidious, and Tony wishes he had the guts to punch Ty and drag Steve away.  Instead, he thinks he’ll just slink off and find more champagne (he wants a martini, but Pepper commanded that champagne was all he’d get tonight, and all the bartenders have very politely turned him down).

“Ah, Tony!”

He freezes, swearing colorfully in his head.  Of _course_ Steve would notice him right when he’s trying to beat a hasty retreat.  So he turns and smiles.  “Steve!  Enjoying the party?”

Like all the best nightmare scenarios, this one gets worse.  Steve takes Tony’s elbow and tugs him back to Ty.  “Have you met Mr. Stone?  I hear he’s in your line of work.”

Tiberius has that _smile_ that he does, the one that says, ‘I’m a cat, and you’re a very tiny mouse, and we’ll just see how long I bat at you before I get bored.’  “Anthony, it’s been far too long,” he says in his most charming tone, and Tony _desperately_ wants to hit him.  “I forget the social protocol—should I kiss you or slap you?”

Tony wishes he were drunk right now.  If he were drunk, he’d laugh and clap Ty vigorously on the back and tell him to wipe the fucking grin off his face, because Stark Enterprises is more than three times the size of Stone International, no matter how goddamn brilliant and charming its CEO might be.

Lacking a sufficient measure of liquid courage, Tony grins and says, “That’s base slander, Tiberius.  I’ve never yet been slapped in the face by an ex-lover.”

Ty’s eyebrows raise.  “Oh?  I was so sure Janet must slap you every time you pass in the halls of that gaudy monstrosity you call a headquarters.”

He just laughs, because he doesn’t want to start a fight.  If he starts a fight, Ty will undoubtedly win, and then Tony will have been humiliated in front of his boyfriend at his own damn party.  He gulps his champagne, barely notices the fine flavor (he wants _alcohol_ and he wants _lots of it_ and he wants it _now_ ).

And Ty smiles that aloof cat-smile again.  “Ah, well.  Not for lack of trying on her part, I’m sure.  You look puzzled, Anthony…no doubt you’re wondering how I came to be here, at this little soirée of yours.”

Tony gulps more of his champagne, empties the flute to the very last drop.  “I assumed you were invited by Colonel Fury.  It seemed the sort of thing he’d do.  Stone International has radical ideas for such a little company—who knows what kind of terrorists might try to target it?  SHIELD should be ready to leap to its defense, right?”

Ty’s smile hardens at the edges, and Tony simultaneously congratulates and berates himself.  “Indeed.  But where are my manners?  How have you been, Anthony?”

“Bored.  Nobody else has your talent for making me unendingly miserable, with the possible exception of Miss Christine Everhart of Vanity Fair.  She’s made it her mission to be my very own Jiminy Cricket.”

“With spats and top-hat, I’m sure.  And what Blue Fairy is working to make you a real boy these days?  Or wouldn’t you tell me?  Afraid I’d give away all your little secrets?”

Feeling vengeful, Tony steals Steve’s champagne and finishes it off.  “Steve, you know I went to MIT, right?  Ty stole my graduate thesis and accused _me_ of stealing it from _him_.  He got away with it, too, and it would have been the end of us as a couple if I hadn’t been a spineless, co-dependent little kid at the time.  In fact, it took three more years before Rhodey gave me a long lecture about abusive relationships…and blackened both of Ty’s eyes.”  He smiles at Ty, who is speechless with surprise, for once.  “It’s so nice to get things out in the open, isn’t it, Ty?  Now I’m going to walk away while I’m still winning, and this will go down in history as the first time I _ever_ won a fight with you.  _Fantastic_.  Enjoy the rest of the evening.”

And he retreats as quickly as he can without running.

A new bartender has come on duty—he decides to try his luck.

“Hi there, do you know who I am?” he says, and the bartender smiles vacantly.  “ _Excellent_.  I’ll have a vodka martini, as dry as the goddamn Sahara.”

“Scratch that,” Steve says, suddenly at Tony’s side.  “You know Miss Potts said only champagne.”

“I do know, I was just checking to make sure this guy was doing his job properly,” Tony lies.  “Another champagne, please.”

Slightly puzzled, the poor bartender refills his glass, makes a slightly disdainful face when he gulps it down and stuffs a fifty in the tip jar.

“Gosh, Tony, I had no idea,” Steve goes on quietly.  “He seemed like a nice enough fella.”

Tony has to laugh at that.  “He does that.  It’s why he’s not bankrupt.  Y’know, I’m not exactly sure where he was going with the unspoken parts of that Pinocchio analogy.  I’m pretty sure that makes him the whale, but he probably imagines himself as Gipetto.  Self-aggrandizing prick…”

“You okay?”

“I need a drink.  A _real_ drink, not this expensive, bubbly, low-alcohol _crap_.”

Steve bumps shoulders with him.  “No, you don’t.  I like you better without one.  What d’you say we blow this joint and get something to eat?”

“There’s a buffet over there,” Tony says with a vague gesture.

“I want food I can pronounce the names of.”

“You can pretend.”  He glances at the table and waves more broadly.  “That’s what most of the reporters are doing.  Like that blonde next to th—Christ on a bicycle, it’s Everhart…  Let’s go.  _Now_.”

 

 **.End.**


	9. Not Sulking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony is most definitely not sulking just because Wanda went to teach at the Xavier Institute.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wanda has had it with being a front page superhero and gone to teach at the Xavier Institute...which is how Dr. Maximoff is on the staff when Wade arrives in the **Blood & Tears Progression**.  because i promised i would tie my movieverse stuff together.
> 
>  **warnings:**   iron man movieverse, which is something like the Marvel Ultimates universe so far (a little au-ish, because i like the 616 lineup better).  crossed over slightly to x-men movieverse/wolverine gameverse/B&T.  bad 616 references.  slash (TonyxSteve), references to Tony's 'vigorous admiration' of the fairer sex.  language: pg (primetime tv).
> 
>  **pairing:**   Tony/Steve.
> 
>  **timeline:**   let's call it ~3.5 years after the first movie, with the Avengers firmly established, Tony and his entourage moved to Manhattan, etc.  four or five months after **No Strings**. at this point, i have no actual idea what the year is, because things start to get a little conflicting-ish.  i think i will do what Marvel usually does and say "screw continuity; this is the order i say things happened in. there is no such thing as date."
> 
>  **disclaimer:**   all the characters belong to someone not me.
> 
>  **notes:**   1) William Tell is supposedly one of Mozart's better operas.  the overture is famously associated with horse races.  2) the thing about math nerds is something that was explained to me by my own math nerd.  apparently the best mathematicians think of math in terms of mental images, not numbers.  and yes, my dear sweet (unromantic jerk) husband is the Dr. Nakashima mentioned in the fic, and he did indeed write a thirty-page dissertation on 6D matrix simplification for one of his grants.  3) if anybody cares, a six-dimensional matrix is a 2D matrix where each element is a 3D matrix.  the main use of 6D matrices these days is in storing two dimensional images on computers, where each 3D matrix represents the RGB value of a pixel.  being able to simplify that kind of data storage would be like replacing a whole cat with the word 'cat'--we still know what it represents, but it takes up a lot less space.  apparently, this can be done in a much better way than with the current system of hash-table aliases etc. (and you have now reached the end of my knowledge of computer science XD).  4) Reed Richards and Henry McCoy were, in fact, colleagues at one point.  Tony is the colleague-of-a-colleague that Hank mentioned on his way out the door in [Dirty Thief](http://lex-n-karu.deviantart.com/art/X-Men-Dirty-Thief-157069887) (Blood & tears).  5) i'm imagining that Happy gave Pepper a pet rock with a card that said "because you needed a much lower-maintenance pet."  its name is Tony, it doesn't run off to get itself killed every five minutes, and it doesn't leave messes for her to clean up. ♥ she probably talks to it and tells it what a good boy it is.  6) "Barney the Dinosaur's Magic Bag Experiment" is a line MerianMoriarty gave me.  i have never seen this "barney the dinosaur" guy, but she assures me that he has a magic bag that can and does contain just about anything.

**Not Sulking**

 

Tony was busy ignoring all of the instant messages and emails blinking ‘URGENT!’ on his desktop.  What non-math-minded people didn’t understand was that all the really good math had to be experienced in its entirety, all in one go, uninterrupted—to do otherwise would be like listening to the first two minutes of William Tell and then coming back a year later to hear the rest.  The numbers had to be let to dance unfettered, slowly revealing the shape of the concept they were drawing, like objects in space carefully depicting impact and gravity with the play of rotation and revolution.  Mathematicians— _real_ mathematicians, like this Nakashima kid back in Cali—could do more than just see the pictures being painted by the numbers, they could grab the brush.

So instead of checking messages and mail, he was utterly engrossed in a thirty-page dissertation on some crazy Japanese math professor’s theorem of six-dimensional matrix simplification.  Like a ‘How To Sculpt’ video by Michelangelo.

And, being Tony Stark, he wasn’t hunched in his chair flipping through sheets of paper.

The dissertation was up on the window, some ZZTop was playing at what Pepper considered a ‘barely reasonable volume’ (still far too quiet for proper concentration), and Tony was occasionally darting up to make notes in the margins with a laser pen.

It was fascinating.  And if it was right, it was going to make super-compressed data transmission a lot faster.

Somewhere far away, his office door opened and Pepper was talking.  Tony couldn’t be bothered with that—not when the _numbers_ were still talking.

Something needed to be signed, something needed to be reviewed, some other things needed to be approved.

“Mm-hm, whatever, forge my signature,” he mumbled absently, frowning as he worked out an expansion of an equation.  “This is unbelievable.  Have you seen this?  This kid is _good_.  Can we hire him?”

Pepper said something else that sounded distinctly annoyed.

“Great,” he replied.  “Make it happen.”

With a resounding click of a mouse button, the music stopped and the dissertation vanished.

“No, no, no, wait, no!” he yelped, as his calculations turned into skyline.  “Where’d the math go?  Why is the math gone?!”

Pepper regarded him smugly.  “I asked if I could turn it off so you’d pay attention, you said ‘make it happen.’”

“Cruel,” he muttered, tossing the laser pen onto his desk.  “You know that’s not the ‘make it happen’ I meant.”

She rolled her eyes and dropped a big stack of papers (bristling with various colored flag markers) beside the laser pen.  “If that’s the six-dimensional matrix stuff, we can’t get him.  He teaches for a private university in SanFran that has an ironclad contract with him—they _really_ wanted the patents for his grant work.”

“Damn.”  Tony flopped into his chair with a huff.

“How long have you been standing there, ignoring everything and doodling with that math?”

He blinked.

She rolled her eyes.  “Jarvis, how long has the dissertation been projected on the window?”

_~Since approximately seventeen minutes after nine this morning.  In terms of elapsed time, six hours and twenty-two minutes.~_

Tony tried to look contrite.

Pepper narrowed her eyes and rearranged the accumulated layer of paperwork on his desk.  “Mm.  And how long have you been ignoring this folder from Reed?”

“It’s some kind of medical mystery,” he dismissed with a wave of his hand.  “Something some Dr. McCoy sent him.  I don’t do medicine, Pep; humans are boring compared to machines.”

“Some renaissance man you are,” she snorted, sorting and stacking.  “Reed does biomechanics, biochemistry, astrophysics, particle physics, engineering…this McCoy of his is Dr. Henry McCoy, the American mutant ambassador to the UN, an expert in physics, chemistry, mutant genetics, literature, medicine, philosophy, and politics.  They make you look like a one-trick pony.”

He scowled.

“I don’t think Reed would have sent you something he didn’t think you’d be interested in,” Pepper went on, tossing a stack of papers into the trash with a sigh.  “There’s the problem—it got here last week, the two month anniversary of Wanda’s official retirement from the Avengers.  Are you _still_ sulking about that?”

“No, I’m not sulking, of course I’m not sulking, that’s absurd, I don’t sulk.”

“I think Steve would disagree,” she remarked.

“Why can’t you be CEO again?  You were much better at it than I am.  Fire Marcus and make me head of development instead.  Then I can spend my days tinkering in my workshop.”

“We can’t fire Marcus, he’s the only person besides you who’s any good at troubleshooting all of your brilliant half-finished work.”  Pepper scrutinized him for a moment.  “McCoy sent that information to Reed from the Xavier Institute.”

“The—mutant high school thing that, that—”

“—that Wanda went to work for, yes,” Pepper finished for him, and went back to the itinerary on her phone.  “You still haven’t okayed any of the Quinjet designs, and we need one before the end of the quarter.”

“I’m still not going to approve these crappy schematics,” Tony said, flinging a pamphlet of jet blueprints over his shoulder.

“Well, Marcus thinks they’ve made progress since last year—”

“Marcus is an idiot, they’re still using twice as much cabling as they need, and the design on that tail is sloppy as hell.”

“Disney and Warner are fighting over the rights to make an Iron Man cartoon.”

“I thought Fox had that.”

“They dropped it for some new animated sitcom that’s supposed to be better than Family Guy and the Simpsons combined.”

“Go with Disney.  Yeah, Disney’s cool.  Mickey Mouse, Cap’n Jack.  Shell-head will fit right in.”

She rolled her eyes.  “Fury’s still waiting for that new secure comm technology for the Avengers.  Should I tell him you’re sulking?”

Tony started signing things.  “Think he’d believe that?  That I’m sulking?”

“You’ve been in this useless funk of yours since Wanda first told the team she was leaving.  Tony, superheroing isn’t for everyone.  Between your media circus, Pete’s slew of arch-nemeses, and all of Carol’s weird space-alien stuff earlier in the year, it was just too much drama for her.  Teaching is more her speed, which you’d know if you’d checked your messages in the past month.”

“Where’s my lunch?”

Pepper glared at him.  “You don’t get food until you do your job.”

“I dunno, I’m feeling a little low on motivation with the skyrocketing male-to-female ratio in the Avengers.”

She hit him with the blueprints (which she’d rescued from the floor).  “You’re dating Captain America and you’re worried about no longer being surrounded by pretty supergirls?”

“My world requires beautification, the same way your desk requires…weird…perpetual-motion…doohickies that drive me nuts.  And that pet rock that Happy got you—don’t think I didn’t notice the dopey ‘ohmigod, that’s so sweet’ face you made at him when he gave you that thing.”

“You are impossible.”

“Funny, for the past decade you seemed to think I was altogether _too_ possible.  And when we were dating?  Disastrous, but possible.”

This time she rolled blueprints into a tight tube before smacking him.

“Ow!”

“I’ll get you copies of all the grant work that math teacher’s written.  _If_ you’ll go through all your messages and emails _properly_ and get things signed and approved and taken care of.”

“Good, great, cool,” he mumbled, rubbing at the spot she’d hit on his arm.  “Anything else on my agenda for the day, O Wise and Powerful Pepper?”

“Look at that file Reed forwarded sometime this week.  Also, Steve’s expecting you for dinner at eight.  He mentioned swing dancing.”

“I don’t do swing.”

Pepper inscrutably gathered the things he’d already signed.  “Well, you can tell him that yourself, because I’m not braving that face he makes when he’s pretending not to be disappointed.”

“The one that makes every little old lady in the vicinity offer him cookies?”

“That one.”

Groaning, he lifted a page of the hefty file Reed had sent him.  “Some guy’s brain is malfunctioning, how exciting.”

“Keep reading,” she said sternly.

“Blah-blah shifts in consciousness…theorized to be caused by electrical surges yadda-yadda brought on by…”  He frowned.

Pepper tapped the page.  “Malfunctioning behavioral modification hardware.  Keep going.”

“You read this?”

“Of course I read it; someone has to read your mail when you won’t.”

Tony turned his attention back to the page.  “Uh…malfunctioning radio receiver possibly insufficiently shielded from today’s bombardment of electromagnetic transmissions coupled with the fluctuating substantiality of the dimensional fabric of our universe.”  He grabbed the pen he’d been using to sign things and jotted a note.  “Dimensional fabric is way out of my field, I’ll leave that stuff to Pym and Richards.  But electromagnetic transmission and behavioral modification hardware I can do.”

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Pepper said.  “Dinner and dancing at eight—I’ll be back at seven with a fresh suit.”

He kept scanning down the page, flipped to another.  “Deadpool Program?  Lame name…might as well call it ‘Project Ball of Wax,’ or the ‘Barney the Dinosaur’s Magic Bag Experiment.’”

“Don’t get too absorbed,” Pepper called as she left.

“Uh-huh,” he replied, taking a moment to turn his music back on before he went back to reading about Wade Wilson’s faulty brainware.

 

**.End.**


	10. I Don't Dance (Unless I'm in Love)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony doesn't dance...usually. And now they're outed to the public, thanks to YouTube.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> done now. i think. yeah. sure.
> 
>  **warnings:**   iron man movieverse, which is something like the Marvel Ultimates universe so far (a little au-ish, because i like the 616 lineup better).  slash (TonyxSteve).  language: pg-13 (for s*** and f***).
> 
>  **pairing:**   Tony/Steve.
> 
>  **timeline:**   let's call it ~3.5 years after the first movie, with the Avengers firmly established, Tony and his entourage moved to Manhattan, etc.  evening of/day after **Not Sulking**.
> 
>  **disclaimer:**   all the characters belong to someone not me.
> 
>  **notes:**   1) Tony 'doesn't do swing' because he's a crap dancer.  2) Hairspray is a musical about the universality of dancing (and that you don't have to be skinny, pretty, popular, or white to love dancing).  3) don't know what a greaser is?  The Fonz from Happy Days, Danny from Grease, and Mutt from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull are all greasers.  50s punk rebel boys.  4) 'going together' is older slang for dating (usually exclusively, see also 'going steady').  5) by 'Peggy,' Steve means Peggy Carter, the hot sassy agent from the movie who almost got to be his girlfriend in the comics (but we all know how that ended up).  6) running gag in my Avengers fics:  Spidey snores loud enough to wake the dead.  7) 'Natalie Rushman' is Natasha's cover identity at Stark Industries ('she's from legal,' i believe was what Pepper said, quickly followed by 'potentially a very expensive sexual harassment lawsuit').

**I Don’t Dance (Unless I’m in Love)**

 

Steve was eyeing the dance floor.

Tony was thinking of all the horrible ways that could end up, since he had two left feet when it came to anything more complicated than a basic waltz.

So they sat there with their drinks (cranberry juice) in awkward silence, because most topics of conversation had been exhausted over dinner.

After twenty minutes of it, Steve gave that endearing little disappointed frown of his and said, “Well, aren’t you going to ask me to dance?”

“I don’t dance,” Tony half-lied.

“I’ve seen video of you dancing,” protested Steve.  “With Miss Potts, and with Janet.”

He winced.  “That’s different.”

Steve sat a little straighter.

“No, Steve, not because you’re a guy—although that’s admittedly a pretty big difference just on the matter of size.”

“Then why not?  How’s it any different, if that’s not the problem?”

He’d been cornered into dancing with Jan, and Pepper could get workman’s comp for being injured in the line of duty.

He drew a deep breath, but his voice still came out in a sheepish squeak.  “I’m a terrible dancer.  I know _how_ to dance, I’ve had lessons, but the only dance I can do without breaking my partner’s toes is a basic waltz.  So I don’t dance.”

“But you _have_ ,” Steve persisted.  His frown gained a pouty edge.

Yes, he’d danced _waltzes_ , but this was a damn _swing club_.  There was a girl out there done up like something out of Hairspray, being twirled around like a frigging baton by her greaser boyfriend.

Tony winced again and gulped at his juice.  “Come on, Steve, we’re at this nice club, you deserve to have a dance partner who won’t step on your feet the whole time.”

“Tony,” Steve said softly.

He sighed and met his date’s gaze.

“I’ve never danced before.  I mean, I’ve wanted to, plenty of times…but I was too shy before the serum, and too busy after.  So I’m the one who’ll probably be stepping on _your_ feet.  We don’t have to do anything fancy like some of the couples out there.  I’d just really like to dance with you.”

 _Well, crap._

The band moved into a slower song, and Tony grinned.  “Far be it from me to refuse such a heartfelt plea.  Shall we dance?”  He stood up, offered his hand.

“I’d love to,” Steve answered.

On the dance floor, they paused and looked at one another.

“Okay, who’s leading?” Tony asked.  “You’re taller, but you’ve never danced.”

Steve blushed.  “Do you think it would be awkward if you led?  I’m okay with it if you are.”

It was only a little awkward, and mostly because Steve was staring at their feet with such intense concentration.

There were a million things he wanted to say right then, to Steve’s beautiful, serious, down-turned face.

 _You’re adorable.  I love you.  Relax.  You’re incredible.  I’m the luckiest schmuck on the planet.  You have the most amazing eyes.  Why the hell do you want to dance with_ me _?_

“Well, we haven’t stepped on each other yet,” Steve chuckled.  He looked up from their feet, caught Tony staring, and immediately took a bad step that almost sent them both crashing to the floor.  “Oh, gee whiz, I’m _sorry_!”

But Tony just laughed.

 _I love you.  God, I love you._

They weren’t dancing anymore—just standing together, hands braced on shoulders and waist from their stumble.

“Really?” Steve said.

 _Oh, shit—did I say that out loud?_

Tony blinked.  “What?”

Steve ducked his head again.  “You…you said…”  He was doing a fine impression of a tomato.  “…well, anyway…did you mean it?”

Tony’s heart thudded heavily.  If it weren’t for obsessive maintenance checks, he’d wonder if the reactor might be malfunctioning.  “Don’t worry about it, Steve, you don’t have to say anything.  That’s just my feelings.  It just kinda slipped out.  I mean, I don’t want you to feel oblig—”

“I think I love you, too,” Steve interrupted.  “We’ve been going together for three months; it’s okay to be in love.  And like you said at the beginning, it wasn’t a sudden thing…so if maybe one of us was in love even back then…that’d be okay, too.”

Tony let out the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.  “Were you?  _I_ was.”

The big blond didn’t say anything.  He just stood there and blushed.

“So, how was your first dance?  Was it everything you’d hoped for?”

“Well, I’d actually hoped it’d be with Peggy.  But other than that, yes.  I mean, I didn’t step on your feet, we didn’t fall and break our necks…”  Steve shrugged and gave another dopey little grin.

“We can go back to dancing, if you want,” offered Tony.

So they did.  Steve watched their feet, and Tony watched Steve, and they spun slowly across the floor, and Steve was big and warm and strong under his hands, and it was the happiest Tony could remember being in a long, _long_ time.

“People are staring,” Steve said, sounding quietly panicked.

Tony smirked.  “They’re just jealous of me.  Let ‘em stare, sweetheart.”

They were front-page news the next day, thanks to someone’s cell phone video on YouTube (a hundred and twenty thousand hits and rising).  Classier publications were using the headline ‘Let ‘Em Stare, Sweetheart.’  The Daily Bugle’s headline was ‘Stark Stoops to Shock Publicity.’  Tony was surprised Jameson hadn’t gone the easy ‘liberal agenda’ route.

Pepper’s phone was ringing pretty much nonstop, and she was going red in the face from very politely telling reporters to fuck off.  By nine, she’d turned her phone off and thrown it at Tony.

For his part, Tony couldn’t stop smiling.  The quality wasn’t stellar, and most of the conversation was unintelligible, but the video was just plain _cute_.  Just him, dancing with Steve, looking awkward and graceless as a pair of kids at junior prom.  Then Steve tripped, and Tony laughed, and there it was for the whole Internet to hear:  ‘ _I love you.  God, I love you._ ’

And it wasn’t like they’d kept it a big secret before.  Occasionally, some nosey magazine would have a blurry picture of them on one of their dates, but nobody’d officially asked if they were dating, so they’d never confirmed or denied it.

Shortly before ten, Pepper bustled into his office.

“It’s over there,” he said, waving toward where her phone had landed.

“Are you _still_ watching it?” she asked sourly.

“It’s in my favorites.”

“Well, pause it and change your tie.  Press conference downstairs in five, and I still have to find something for Steve to wear.”

“Should’ve seen this coming,” he pointed out.

She glared and shoved the gold tie at him.  “Hurry up and ditch the scarlet, it’s too aggressive.  We want calm and unapologetic.”

“I’ll leave the jacket, too, I think.”

“Which suspenders have you got on, the sapphire or—okay, yes, fine.  Just so you know, I think I should get hazard pay for this.”  And with a swoop to get her Blackberry, Pepper marched back out of the office.

He let the video play through while he flipped his collar up and slipped off the scarlet tie.

Slowly knotting the fresh tie, Tony ambled out the door.  At the front hall, there was a sudden flurry of innocent mouse-clicks and sudden studious attention to work.  One of the secretaries peered over her monitor at him.

“Sorry ladies, I’m taken,” he said with a wink and a cheeky grin as the elevator door opened.

Steve was standing there (jeans, sneakers, Stark Industries tee) blushing bright pink.  “Miss Potts seems upset,” he hazarded when the door shut out those curious stares.

“Hm,” Tony said neutrally.

“Have you got a speech for this?  I mean, Colonel Fury seems to like to keep things very tidy and official for the most part—”

The elevator door opened.

Natasha dragged them toward the press room with a brilliant smile on her face.  “If any classified information comes out of your mouth in front of those cameras, I will knock you cold and leave you bound and gagged in the room next to Mr. Parker’s for an entire night.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Miss Rushman.”

Pepper was talking at the podium, but the press drowned her out with an eager roar of questions as Tony and Steve entered the room.

“Good morning,” Tony said cheerfully into the microphones.  “Apparently, we’re having a press conference.  I’ve never had to call a press conference about my dating habits before; it’s quite a novelty.  I’m not actually sure why we need one, come to think of it.  Maybe one of you would like to enlighten me…how ‘bout Blue-Eyed Chick from Fox?”

“Mr. Stark, what do you have to say about the video footage on YouTube that appears to show you and Captain America dancing?  Are there any plans to sue the video’s creator for violation of privacy?”

“No, I do not intend to sue, I think a warning will do the trick.  As for the video, I can only say…”  He paused gave the cameras a frown of dismay.  “Only a hundred and twenty thousand, people?  Really?  I thought I was being pretty charming, worthy of at least two hundred thousand overnight views.”

The crowd laughed.

He looked back at the girl from Fox.  “And I’m flattered that a member of the press would use the term ‘dancing’ for that sad, uncoordinated foot-shuffling we were doing.  Turns out that between us we have four left feet, and as you saw in the video, that can be pretty dangerous on the dance floor.  Yes, Ginger Guy from CBS?”

“Captain Rogers, what do you have to say about the situation?  Are you, in fact, dating Mr. Stark?”

Steve leaned in shyly and said, “Yes.  We’ve been going steady for about three months now.  We’re in love—or _I’m_ in love, anyhow.”

“I’m _very_ in love,” Tony added.

Christine Everhart shoved her recorder through the crowd.  “And what have you got to say about being labeled a ‘gay superhero’?”

He looked at her with a raised eyebrow.  “That’s preposterous, Miss Everhart.  I’ve been in love with four people in my life, two of whom were women, that makes me a ‘bi superhero,’ thank you.”  He pointed at the next reporter.  “Jada-Look-Alike from NBC.”

“Will you be attending any public gatherings with Captain Rogers?  Auctions, awards ceremonies, charity balls?”

“Yes and no.  We’ll go as long as there’s no dancing.  For the safety of bystanders, we don’t dance.”

 

 **.End.**


End file.
